Hooray, spring is finally here! When was the last time you reviewed your website? We did a study a few months back and found out that 9 out of 10 entrepreneurs haven’t reviewed their website in over 18 months.
There are so many things that can change in that amount of time. It’s important to routinely review your website; it may be surprising what you find. Here is a checklist of items that will help you keep your website current.
Step 1: Review your website content
Is the content on your website still in alignment with your company message? It is important to make sure your website speaks loud and clear about your services and products. When visitors reach your site, they should instantly know what solution you offer.
You also want to make sure your contact details are current and remove any outdated information.
Step 2: Link Checks
If your website has links to other sites (maybe on a resource page), check to make sure they are all working properly.
Step 3: Keywords
If you are not getting the traffic you’d like, it may be time to review your keywords. Are the key terms you’re using in alignment with what your target audience would typically Google for?
Step 4: Test Your Forms
You should regularly check your all of your contact or quote forms to make sure they are working properly. Pretend you are a customer and complete the forms on your website. This lets you check the form completion process from the customer’s view and it lets you test the delivery on your end.
Step 5: Browser Compatibility
Test your browser compatibility to see if your website is loading properly in all of the major web browsers. Cross Browser Testing is a great site that allows you to test your site compatibility.
Step 6: Check for 404 Errors
When someone clicks a link to a page that no longer exists, they get a 404 error, or PAGE NOT FOUND alert. This alert throws up red flags and makes people quickly leave your website. It’s important to make sure you have created a custom 404 error page to explain to your visitors why a particular is no longer active on your website.
Step 7: Check Your Load Speed
Your site should be checked regularly to ensure that all of the pages are loading quickly. You only get one shot at making an awesome impression to your prospective buyers. Experts say that your website should load in less than 5 seconds. Loads In and Web Wait are free sources that allow you to check the speed of your website.
Step 8: Review Terms and Policies
Examine the terms and policies on your website to ensure that they are up to date and reflect your business practices and comply with any new laws. If you are updating your terms and policies, don’t forget to send out a notice to your current clients to make them aware of the changes.
Step 9: Check for Grammatical Errors
Over time, errors can slowly creep into your site as content changes are made. A site free of grammatical errors adds an extra level of professionalism.
Step 10: Back Your Site Up
Every time there is a change to your website, it should be backed up. The virtual world is very unpredictable and you don’t want to be caught unprepared. I recommend going an extra step and saving it on a disk in addition to the copy you have on your computer.
You should schedule a regular download and backup a copy of your website throughout the new year. These backups can be done monthly, quarterly or maybe even semi-annually or annually if you don’t update your site very often.
Are you too busy to keep your website maintained? Contact us today for a free website evaluation. We’d love to help you maintain your small business website.