Spring is finally drawing near, which means there’s not only fun holidays to look forward to such as St. Patrick’s Day and Easter, but also the less than fun (depending on who you’re talking to) activity: spring cleaning.
We’re not talking about your home, however; we are referring to your business’s website as well as your content marketing strategy. By following this checklist not only will it allow you to focus on how best to improve your company but also it will free up some time that you can spend going outside as the weather finally warms up!
Why you need to do it
It’s always a great idea to update your website in general (more on that in this post). There may be some designs you’re no longer satisfied with or they haven’t been updated in several years. The content you wrote 3 years ago could use some brushing up, or maybe your brand values have shifted and the content you wrote then no longer reflects your business’s brand today. There could be forms of content or design you’d rather promote, or maybe you want to start investing some time into promoting your site online as opposed to offline.
As for your business’s social media, who are all these groups you’re following? Do you even remember who’s who anymore? Perhaps you may have some great ideas from last year that you want to implement, or maybe you want to scrap a current strategy that’s just not working out for your company?
All of these courses of action are great reasons to spring clean your website, and also your content marketing strategy. It will give your company a fresh, clean appearance online and also give you a better focus on what’s working for your company marketing-wise versus the strategies that are no longer as helpful. Spring cleaning these aspects of your business may also attract new and returning clients or customers in the first place.
Now, on with the checklists. Feel free to print this out if that helps you stay focused the best!
Spring Cleaning the Website Checklist
- Review the copyright date in the site footer. Don’t just automatically change it to the current year, however. More on the reason why can be found in this article.
- Review and update your about page profiles. Maybe some staff members have left, or you’ve welcomed new people to your business.
- Rewrite your product descriptions (if you sell online). Maybe you’ll find two of the same you accidentally used, or the shop could use a brush-up overall.
- Re-optimize your website. This can take some time, however, so don’t ask your professional web devs to rush this part, and make sure it’s white hat SEO.
- Remove Google+ from your website if you haven’t already. We wrote an article all about why you should.
- Review your business’s contact information. Is it up to date with the correct info?
- Have our professionals at V3 scan your site for the following (that’s only if your site wasn’t built by us already): security weaknesses, spammy links, links that no longer work, comments that phish, pages that no longer serve your customers, images that bloat your site’s loading time, malfunctioning social media widgets and e-mail forms, and content that needs proofreading. If there’s a lot to clean up, it’s best to get a new site from scratch; that way there’s less technical details to spruce up and it’s maintained by real professionals!
Spring cleaning your content marketing strategy checklist
- Brush up on your most recently visited pages. Does the content still apply? Or could they use some tweaking content-wise?
- Revisit your blog schedule for posting new content. If there’s an inconsistent pattern, it may be time to refresh the schedule and come up with a better plan. Having some help from your staff or whoever else is in charge of overseeing this schedule (or someone who has an objective enough viewpoint) might help further.
- Have you received any new good testimonials? Add some to your reviews page.
- Review the images on your website. Replace any that look poorly or are hindering the site’s loading time. Maybe add some new headshots on your about page?
- Check on your social media. This is probably the quickest way to assess and determine whether your online presence is strong enough or not, and also what’s working in your content strategy and what’s not working so well.
- Add a content strategy that you’ve been meaning to start, but haven’t yet. Maybe add an e-mail newsletter? Or start up a new social media account such as LinkedIn or Instagram?
- Are your calls to action okay, or could they be a little more clear? Maybe it’s time to rework those too.
We hope this helps your website gain some more traffic, build some much-needed trust, and improve its overall quality. If your entire website needs all of these tasks completed and more however, then it needs more than a light spring cleaning—maybe it’s time for a new website.
Need any help with these spring cleaning tasks, or is getting a new website overall the first item on your checklist? If so, give us a call at V3 Media. If you want to discuss further how best you can spruce up your business’s website but need some feedback, we’re available for one-on-one consultations as well. You make the call, we’ll meet you where you need us to be!