Your Monthly Website Checklist

No guest likes visiting a site that is boring, stagnant, and outdated. Search engines don’t like it either. Did you know that Google actually provides better rankings to websites that are frequently updated as part of its algorithms? When was the last time you updated your website?

Just like your spring cleaning checklist, there is a list of items you should tackle each month -at the minimum -to keep the site fresh and user-friendly so that it performs its best for you. Below you will find a checklist of some of the most important items to attend to.

• Remove outdated information — Have you stopped carrying a specific product or stopped offering certain services? Make sure to remove them from your website. This will prevent guests from finding something that is no longer available and allow search engines to focus in on the services you do provide.
• Check stats — Do you have analytics or at the very minimum a hit counter for the pages on your website? You should review these reports monthly, to determine your most popular pages and use that information to focus your website efforts. Set goals for your website and investigate an SEO or marketing package that will help you to get there.
• Update content — Read over your content and make any updates that you can to make the content read better. Perhaps you rushed your content phase for your website planning to “do it later”. Nov’s the time. Look for any numbers that can be updated since you last changed the content. (Common Example: “We have been in business for xx years”) If you are a restaurant where your menu changes, be sure the latest items and prices are listed, or if you had a brochure redone be sure the latest version is linked from the website.
• Add a monthly special — Nothing is worse than a site that has outdated coupons on it. You don’t want guests wondering if a special is current or still valid. Update any “monthly specials” and add new expiration dates for coupons. One of the best ways to turn off a guest is if they are lured to try your business because of a coupon and then find out that they can’t.
• Add new testimonials, blog posts, or photos — If you have any systems in your website such as a testimonial section, add in some new testimonials from your most recent work. Schedule blog posts to run for the next month, and add new pictures into your photo gallery. The idea is to keep the website fresh so returning visitors have something new to see.
• Check for broken links — If you removed any pages, make sure they aren’t still being linked to from existing pages. Go through the site page by page and make sure there aren’t any broken links that could cause frustration with users and confusion for search engines.

Well there you have it, you can print out this list and refer to it monthly, bi-weekly, or even weekly to help keep your website fresh. Your website will offer a tremendous return on your investment, especially compared to other media, but there are a number of things you do need to do to help it along. If you think you can pay for your website and then neglect it to do all your sales for you, you may as well build a sand castle on the beach and expect it to be there when you return a week later.