New Year resolutions for your business online
12/1/2017
Conduct an audit of your website. Your site is the focal point for your online presence so there is always room for improvement and a new year is a good time to take stock of things.
Content
- Is it up to date? You may have added services or products over the last year that are not featured on your website. Do you have any new projects you could be talking about or showcasing?
- Get in touch with clients who can provide you with new testimonials.
- In general, are your messages still strong and relevant?
- Be honest with yourself in assessing whether you’re providing quality content. Are you offering something of substance to visitors that is useful and informative?
- Do you provide a reason for people to spend more than a few seconds on your website?
- If you have a blog, when was the last time you posted an article? Make a plan to add a fresh post on a regular basis.
- If you work in a technical field, it’s important that you are not using too much jargon.
Sometimes you can just be too close to things and it can heread through your website. It could be a friend, a business colleague or us.
Design and layout
- Does your site look good? Styles change and if your site is more than a few years old it may not reflect current expectations.
- Look at your competitors and see how you compare.
- It can be as simple as refreshing images but make sure they are good quality.
If your website looks dated this will not reflect well on you. Invest in your website to provide the best experience for your customers.
Cross device compatibility
Is your website responsive? It is important that people can view your website easily on whatever device they are using. Any website built in the last few years should be responsive but if yours is older it’s worth getting this resolved.
6 good reasons for having a responsive website:
- Mobile usage is increasing.
- Shopping on mobile devices in increasing.
- Social media increases people using mobile devices to view your website.
- Improves your ranking with Google.
- Provides a better user experience.
Search engine optimisation
Is your website optimised as best as it can be?
Strong site architecture with clear navigation will help search engines index your site quickly and easily.
It also means providing original, well structured, informative content, using targeted keywords and good page or post titles.
What are the search engines looking for?
- Providing the most relevant results to a searcher’s query.
- The quality of your content.
- Ease of navigation.
- Quickly loading web pages.
- Responsive design.
- Meta descriptions and title tags.
- Image descriptions – use the alt tag!
- Local SEO – adding your site to Google My Business.
- A social media presence.
Using Google Analytics
This is a free tool so make use of it. It can show you how people find you, what pages they view when they’re on your website and how long they spend there. Are there any pages that people are not visiting or leave very quickly? This gives you the insight to improve things for your visitors.
And finally ...
None of the information here is new but it’s surprising how many people take their website for granted and, once it’s live, leave it to languish.
If you need help with a website revamp, an SEO campaign, online marketing or your social media management why not get in touch for a chat 01223 873349 or info@catfishwebdesign.com
