It's a new year! And it's a good time to make sure that your website is working optimally for you. Here are a few sensible things to do with your site (not just at this time of year, mind you!)
- Make sure the site has an SSL certificate and is running on the https protocol. It's more secure for your visitors and good for search engines like Google.
- Review your publishing schedule. Are you able to publish something every month/week/day? Is it sensible to do this?
- Review how you write news article and blog posts. Write for site visitors and your potential customers ("sell the benefits") but have a strategy for search engines as well.
- Check all pages and all website content for accuracy. You might be surprised to find that something you wrote in last year is no longer accurate. Your business may have changed over the last year. Your website needs to reflect that.
- Check your website speed using page test tools. Test several pages, not just the home page. In particular, check that images are still optimised. It's easy to forget that large images will slow your site. A fast site will be better for your visitors and for your website sales. Oh yes it will, Google and other big players like Amazon know this. You should implement best practices for website speed as well!
You might say, these aren't resolutions, they are tasks! Well, perhaps they are but...
... Personally, I would be looking to carry out some of these regularly. Every month for some. Every week for others. As with any other part of your business, frequent maintenance and management will make things a lot easier. If you make a resolution to carry out these regularly on your site this year, I'm sure that it will be better for your business.
03 Jan 2019 10:15:00
Great list Clive! And check your copyright date in your footer! (Hopefully automated but there are sites out there that will still have these that need manually changing…)
I will add that it is a great time for an SEO Audit as well – make sure your site is fighting fit for the coming year.