Is Your Company Website Ready for the New Year?

3 … 2 … 1 … Happy New Year!

It’s something many of us look forward to, a chance to start over fresh. In business, that can mean many things: new marketing, new vendors, a new customer service strategy. And what about your company website? Maybe that could use a little refreshing too.

But what does that look like? What tools and strategies can you use to prepare your company website for the new year? We have some ideas about that.

Content: The Best Place to Start

Too frequently, businesses start by looking at changing the design or moving straight to an SEO overhaul. Those are important, but your content might be a better place to start.

Businesses tweak their game plan and move in all sorts of new directions over the course of a year. Maybe you’ve updated your telephone system and have new phone numbers. Maybe you expanded locations or increased office hours. Or maybe a product upgrade has added new features.

Does your website reflect those changes? Improvements might be as simple as adding a few sentences to your About Us page or updating your Locations page. It’s about ensuring everyone who reads your site has the latest information.

Revitalize Your Key Landing Pages

Do you know what your top pages are? Your homepage is up there. There are also a variety of landing pages where you direct traffic from ads and other links.

Start with your homepage. This is your first impression. Make sure it highlights any changes you’ve made over the past year, events you’re highlighting for the upcoming year, and upgrades to company photos or graphics.

Do the same with any key landing pages. Add testimonials or reviews. Upgrade them to enhance user engagement, and ensure your current information is highlighted in the best possible way.

Increase Security

Security should be at the forefront of every leader’s mind. Unfortunately, it often slips as the day’s fires move to the front and take time.

Opening the morning news should move security back to the top of your list. Based on an analysis of 7 million websites, an average of 94 attacks occur daily, with bots visiting 2,608 times a week. There are an estimated 12.8 million websites infected with malware worldwide.

All of this is to say that security is essential, and an old, outdated website could be putting you at risk if it’s not adequately audited, configured, and updated.

Your hosting provider should have your back. What are they doing to ensure security? Do you have a strong backup plan in mind?

Have you added a secure sockets layer (SSL) certificate to your site? Google requires it. It could be preventing visitors from seeing your site.

What about updates? Plugins and other site tools can leave you at risk if you aren’t vigilant in keeping them up to date and keeping the lines of communication secure.

There is a myriad of other ways to ensure your website is safe and secure. It starts with a website audit to see where you stand. Only when you know where you are can you move forward in a better way. Create time this new year to make your site a little more secure.

It’s Time to Optimize Your Site

There are 5.9 million Google searches per minute. Are you optimized for Google, ready and waiting for prospects and customers to find you?

When a site is first built, it’s exciting and new. You promote it. Customers are excited to visit. You put a lot of energy into it. Over time, however, the initial excitement starts to fall. You stop making changes. You ignore updates.

Make the new year your chance to optimize your site and reach out to communicate with your target audience.

The best place to start an optimization strategy is with a complete site audit for performance. Using tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights can alert you to loading and usability issues. Doing keyword research can inform you of any changes in how your target market uses search—and how well your current approach is working.

Optimization is a delicate balance of seeing where you’ve been and using it to plan for the future. Your website optimization strategies should include:

SEO: Find current target keywords, build better backlinks, speed up your web pages, and optimize your on-page content.
User Experience: Reidentify your customer avatar, think about the user journey, and create a seamless experience.
Conversion: Review current behavior, measure key analytics, and monitor flowthrough.

Of course, these are just your starting point. The more site traffic you have, the more beneficial it is for you to increase your optimization strategies. It’s about looking at your site traffic, figuring out who’s visiting, which pages they land on, and what devices they’re using, and finding key ways to improve the entire process.

Accessibility

SEO and accessibility go hand in hand. Site structure is a significant component of SEO. Google has long stated that user experience is key to the long-term success of a website. And with that as a goal, it’s only natural that they continue to boost sites that spend time making their sites accessible to all.

A lot of this is knowing and understanding your prospect and customer base. It’s all about making it accessible to those with disabilities. It’s a best practice and, in some cases, a legal requirement. This includes making changes for better navigation, alt text for images, and compatibility with screen readers.

This is about updating your site to widen your potential audience and improve overall user experience.