The start of a new year means several things for a small business.  It can mean a sluggish retail season, or prepping for tax season.   Here at Bombastic, this is our favorite time of year to do some Website Spring Cleaning. While it is tempting to adopt a Set It And Forget It policy towards your website, now is the perfect time to take stock of how your website is performing, and see if it needs a fresh coat of paint.

Why you want to plan time for a website audit

There are several reasons you want to be diligent about website maintenance.  First of all, internet standards are steadily, continuously evolving.  You undoubtedly noticed how websites evolved with the advent of WiFi, and again with the dominance of smart phones. The coding structure of your website needs to keep up with technology trends to effectively deliver your message to your customers. 

More business is lost every year through neglect than any other cause.

Rose Kennedy

Not only could you be losing customers to your competitor’s optimized sites, but did you realize that Google will reduce your search rankings if your website is not built on a Mobile First code structure? Your out-of-date site could actually be hurting your business.

Secondly, while your site might be static, your marketplace never is. You want to ensure the content on your site has kept up with your latest product and service offerings. And do you give any thought to how you are positioned against your competition?  Make sure that your website content marketing strategy reflects the competitive situation of today, not two years ago.

refocus your strategy

Refresh and refocus

What are some areas you should review on your website? 

  • If you don’t know what coding structure your website is built on, the relative age of your website is a good clue.  If it was created more than two years ago, it’s time to take a look under the hood and check.
  • Are you getting the leads or sales from your website that you have planned on?  Have the leads dropped off recently?  Then time to examine how incoming traffic to your site is doing.  You might have lost some ranking on search engines or business directories. Doing some keyword analysis or a simple online advertising campaign could give you a boost.
  • Another area to consider if your sales leads are dropping off:  your website content might not be supporting all steps of the sales process.  Update the content that will boost a website visitor’s interest, or help move them along to making a decision.
  • Are customers calling you with more questions than they used to?  The content on your site might not be focused on today’s needs.  Log the questions and take a good look at how your website content is organized – from the user’s perspective. If it takes more than two clicks to access the information they are calling with, your site structure needs to be redone.
  • Have you Googled your business recently?  And searched for your primary business or industry in your town/region?  That will give you a quick feel for how you are doing compared to your competition.  

While there are some technical aspects to a website maintenance program, it’s a rather simple process to perform an audit.  In fact, we do it as part of our free consultation for new and current clients.  We know that keeping on top of issues before they spiral out of control is how we can help our clients be successful.

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