So it’s the end of 2019 and you haven’t looked at your website in weeks or months, but as long as you have a site that is functional that clients can contact you through your good, right?
Well maybe…
Just like your health, your website and business require work in order to stay fit and healthy. So, let’s put in a little bit of work so you can reap the benefits of having a healthy website into the new year.
1. Remove Any Stale Content
Stale content on a website is the online version of an unswept stoop. When potential clients come to your website and you have an event from 4 months ago and nothing upcoming, what message does that send about your business?
A couple of possible solutions is to remove the events section or temporarily disable it. You may also want to add upcoming events or add a post saying that you have upcoming events with the details coming soon.
2. Back-Up Your Data
It is important to back up your data, especially if you are using a web framework is the PHP database. If you ever have an outage, or god forbid your site gets hacked, you may be unable to recover your site content without it.
Other things that are useful to back up is your Modules, Plugins, and Themes. This is especially important if you made changes or customizations. That way you will have a place to go back to. You may want to enable auto backups or use software to back things up periodically.
3. Update Your Software and Plugins or Modules
If you are using Drupal, WordPress or other frameworks it is important to keep the software up to date.
I know software releases come out so frequently that they can be a pain to keep up with, but modules, plugins, and themes can be important to keep up to date because there can be new features, fixes and most importantly security releases.
It is important to back up your files and database before you update your site. That way if something goes wrong you will be able to get things up and running.
4. Check Your Website Analytics
One thing that can help motivate you in 2020 is checking your website analytics software. We use Google Analytics and Data Studio. Using these or other similar software can help you get a better picture of who your online clients are, how many are coming to your website, from what channels. This can help with marketing and also let you see how important your website is. If you don’t have this software running now is a great time to set it up!
5. Improve Your Search Indexing
I know Search Engine Optimization is so vague and hard to understand, but there are a few easy things you can do to help.
Check out your Search Console Report and see if there are any search errors on your site. Add redirects to fix the errors. Create a site map and submit it to the search engines (the main ones are Google, Bing, Baidu, and Yandex). You can also set up a plugin or module such as All In One SEO Pack or Yoast to help you manage your SEO.
I hope these resolutions can help move your online business into a successful and rewarding New Year. These are just a few of the ways to jumpstart your website and improve your business in 2020. Let’s get more traffic, more leads and more business. Happy New Year!