With the search engines changing their algorithms on the regular, it’s important to update your website every so often in order to keep that online income on the up and up. When’s the last time you really gave your website a good once-over? If it’s been some time since you took a real good critical look at your site, you may want to start now. We live in a time where the slightest SEO error can hurt your rankings and your online income for a good long time – or at least until you can correct that error. Use the following checklist to give your site the overhaul it needs to compete in today’s competitive online market.
Click Like a Prospect
Forget that you are the online marketer and put yourself in one of your average prospects’ shoes. Find your site in the search engines by searching for one of your primary keywords and then click-through. The moment you click, you should be paying attention (and ideally taking notes). What are you looking for?
- How long does your page take to load? Your page should load in a matter of seconds or you will lose traffic.
- Does your web design match your brand? Consider if your use of colors, images or layout could use an overhaul to make the web experience far more pleasant and cohesive for the visitor.
- Did you find what you needed? As a prospect, you should expect to find what you came for in a matter of moments. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, a simple-to-use search function should be implemented. If your prospects are searching for answers, you had better provide those answers if you hope to keep your prospects on your site.
- Is the site easy to use? If the navigation is clunky or the site has a layout that requires too much scrolling back and forth, you may have to update your website with a new layout and design.
- Are you enjoying your experience? This is the bottom line. Will your visitors enjoy coming to your site over your competitor’s site? Do you provide everything they need? These are the sorts of questions you will want to ask yourself as you go through your site and decide what needs to change.
Update Your Website with a New Design
While you should never switch your brand colors or logos, as that can create confusion amongst your consumer base, you should switch up your web design now and again. If it has been some time since your last design update, your customers may feel as though your site is getting stale. As humans, we love novelty and changing your site can sometimes give you the traffic and online income boost you’re looking for.
Update Your Content
Does your home page say everything you need it to? What about your About page? Do you need to improve the quality of your content? To succeed with online marketing today, you need to go above and beyond with the information you provide. You can’t just rehash the same information you find elsewhere online and try to make it your own by adding synonyms and similar phrases. In other words, spinning content just doesn’t work anymore.
To succeed today and to increase your online income to the levels you hope to achieve, you must ‘bring it’ with your writing, images, videos and all other content. Inform your readers with relevant information about your industry, teach them things they might not otherwise know and become the authority in your field. And if at all possible, entertain your audience. If you can be informative, authoritative and entertaining, you’ll have a powerhouse web presence that entices more return visits as your audience will come to understand that you always bring the goods.
When it comes to products and services, let your customers know the benefits of purchasing from you. What will they gain? How will their lives become better? If your website isn’t answering those questions and your customers don’t feel as though the entire web experience is focused on them, you are badly in need of a website update.
Update Your Website SEO
Every so often, you should be conducting:
- Keyword Research: If you have been using the same batch of keywords for years, it might be time to do a little more research to see if those words and phrases are still viable. You might find a whole new list of keywords that are much more search and click-friendly.
- On-Site SEO Audit: Is your meta-data correct? What about your internal link structure? Are you using the best keywords?
- A Satisfaction Survey: When you update your website, survey your prospects and customers to find out what they really think. You can guess at what your prospects want all day long, but until you actually hear what they want from their own mouths it will always be conjecture.
Now get to work updating your website so that you can increase your online income by spring.
