Has spring arrived? I think mostly. At last, your legs can see the daylight again by putting on those shorts and skirts again. We get the itch to run a garage sale, clean house, wash the windows, but most importantly do fun things outside. Have you cleaned up the cobwebs on your website lately? Here are five spring cleaning tips to apply directly to your website.
Start on the exterior – First step
Websites visually can always use a tune up now and again, but what is most important to really be concerned about? Focus on your visitor’s experience!
Do the blink test. Look at a page on your website for about five seconds and then look away. What do you remember? What can you tell me about the business? Have you any idea of the product or service they offer? Make your message clear and concise.
Audit those call to actions. No one wants to talk about audits around tax season, but don’t worry this isn’t a tax blog. You do need to do some auditing though on your calls to action. What is the primary objective of your website first off? Is it to drive sales for a specific product or service, or generate a large email list for a product you are launching soon? Does the call to action button or link draw the visitor in? Better yet, check the analytics, the supporting evidence, behind your inklings. Sometimes your “hunch” can get you in trouble. Measure it.
Clean out the shed and garage – Second Step
Admit it. You, like the rest of us, tend to throw and stack those wonderful things (another man’s treasure) in your shed or garage to never be seen again, until yard sale time.
What on your website has been thrown on the forget about me page?
Ok more specifics. There is always a problem child web page where you throw lots of information that could be cleaned up, lined up and sorted through to ultimate consolidate, get rid of, or make into multiple pages. Focus on pages like your About Us for starters. Could you break it down into a separate Company Background page and a Team page? This can also be great for search engine marketing! More pages, more keywords, plus better experience for your visitors (less text to read on one page). Win win!
Is it time to do some updates? – Step Three
Friends of mine who are realtors can tell you the difference between an updated kitchen and an outdated kitchen. Is that old pastel blue still in style? Hmm maybe not.
Does your website need a refresh? Wait! Before you do an entire redesign, sometimes all that is needed is to do a little tweaking. Sometimes background color changes can have a big impact. In fact, if you do it right you could even increase conversion rates.
The important thing is, while you use the broom to clean up the cobwebs in the corners, also do some thinking, and get objective opinions from trusted advisors, on what could spruce it up. Don’t make changes without being prepared to measure the results though as well. Marketing ROI analysis is critical to understand how your money spent impacts the bottom line.
Recycle old content to be reused in a shiny new way – Step Four
Older, not so fresh content that you had spent time creating in the past doesn’t mean it isn’t relevant today or can’t be re-purposed. In fact, often it can be reused to illustrate a point, give examples, or add more details to new fresh content.
What types of new content can you create that can incorporate some of the past material you created?
- eBooks – Take a series of older blog posts that can be curated into a compelling eBook for your visitors. Spice it up with some new facts, or new information that is relevant and you have something worth sharing!
- Social media updates – You don’t always need to have brand spankin’ new content to share on social networks. You can re-share or re-post some of your oldies but goodies on your business Facebook or X (formerly Twitter) pages without harm! People may be pleasantly surprised to read an article or something they missed in the past.
- Create a resources section – You can create a resource section on your website that shows off your expertise and company thought leadership all at the same time creating a valuable resource for your website visitors. Think bookmarks and sharing! If it’s valuable people will share it. Make sure they can share content easily.
Don’t neglect maintenance needed – Step Five
Would you really want to never check those smoke alarm batteries at least once a year? Would you also never want to have important maintenance done to your website that might be critical?
Hopefully by now you are happily using a content management system (CMS) to manage your website. This allows you so many options and freedom from costly edits through someone else and allows your company to always be publishing fresh content yourself or through a website copywriter.
A CMS is a piece of software that sits on your web host. It requires maintenance unless it’s completely integrated and managed for you.
Funny thing is, maintenance is more frequent than yearly, so don’t get caught up thinking it’s a onetime thing. If you don’t have the expertise, get someone who can. It’s important. You don’t want to wake up and have ten emails in your inbox saying your website has been hacked and isn’t working.
Your Best Website Cleaning Tips
I’m curious to hear about your best website and marketing cleaning tips. What would you add to this list?