Your website is open for business 24-7. It doesn’t take a day off when you do and customers can access it at any time. So, what is your website saying when you’re not around?
Websites are too often thought of like a fact sheet or brochure. You made the investment, wrote the content for it once, it’s done and that’s it. The reality however is that your website should be thought of like a living entity. It’s is the number one place all your content marketing efforts will live, and the anchor to every social media post you share. So, when people navigate away from your latest blog post, will the rest of your site content reflect the expert persona you’re working so hard to build?
To make sure that your website stays optimized it’s best to think about a few key points.
1. User Experience:
a. What are the primary goals of your website – product awareness, lead capture, brand education? Is the content and tools you offer on your site reflecting your goals?
b. Ease of use – Is the navigation clear? Are widgets and tools intuitive for users?
2. Reporting: Having good analytics set up on your site can help you unlock some very powerful information. If you don’t know where your leads are coming from, how can you tell what content or marketing initiatives are moving the needle? Newer tools like heat maps can also be a powerful way to help you decide what changes should be made to your website.
3. What are Your Competitors Doing?: By picking three to five competitors and reviewing their websites you should be able to get a sense of what they are doing differently from you. Sometimes there will be things you do better, and sometimes there will be things they do better – spending this time reviewing can help create internal benchmarks and determine future website goals.
4. Behind the Scenes: If your site isn’t up to spec from a technical perspective, you might be getting a bad rap before your customers even finds your page. Things like having a mobile friendly site, good site speed (think page load times) and search engine optimization can have an impact on where your site appears in searches and the amount of time users will spend on your site.
With an optimized site as the solid foundation of your communications efforts, you need to ensure your site content is current, compelling and in line with your brand persona. This will make it easy for consumers of your content to not only connect with you, but feel right at home exploring your website.