Spring cleaning isn’t just for the home. If you run a small business, spring is the ideal time to take a fresh look at your website and do some tidying up. Your business website needs an update from time to time to ensure it looks good, functions correctly, and supports your marketing goals.
With this in mind, here is a 15-point checklist for spring cleaning your website, covering website performance, content, and usability.
Website Performance
1. Update Security
It’s easy to ignore software updates, but it’s important to stay on top of these issues. If you have a WordPress website, make sure your plugins and theme are updated. Otherwise, check with your website host. Updates don’t take too long, and they will improve website security, reliability, and speed.
2. Check for Broken Links
Inevitably, web pages get moved or deleted, but 404 error messages from these broken links are not good for SEO or the user experience. You can check for dead links manually, but it’s easier to use an automated link checker like Dr. Link Check. This tool will check many – if not all – of your web pages for free.
3. Check Site Speed
Slow web page loading times can damage search engine rankings and the user experience. Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to check the speed of your web pages and find tips on how to improve performance.
4. Test for Mobile Responsiveness
Google also offers a mobile-friendly test tool to check how well your site performs on mobile devices. While it doesn’t fix any problems your website has, it does give useful tips on making your site more mobile friendly.
Website Content
5. Check Website Copy for Errors
Any typos on your website can quickly damage your credibility. Take this opportunity to read through the key pages of your website, especially your homepage, About page, and Contact Us page. Apart from spellings and grammar, make sure your copy has a consistent tone of voice.
6. Add Fresh Content
Make sure you update your website with any new information about your products, services, staff, or business in general. Your About page, bio, product pages, and photos might all need updating.
7. Remove Outdated Information
Fresh content is important, but it’s equally important to delete any information that is out of date. Remove blog posts that are no longer relevant or contain outdated information, and make sure company contact details are correct across your site.
8. Review Consistency
While you’re checking for outdated content, you can also make sure that all fonts and visual elements are consistent throughout your website. Anything that looks unprofessional or old-fashioned needs addressing. If you use WordPress, it might be time to update your theme.
9. Update Customer Testimonials
It’s also a good idea to make sure any new testimonials are included on key conversion pages. Recent testimonials are a great way of showing potential customers how your products or services are helping others like them.
10. Make Sure Images Have Alt Tags
All image files should have alternative description tags to help search engine crawlers understand the content on your site. Alt tags are also important for website users with visual limitations who rely on screen reader technology to interpret content.
Website Usability
11. Internal Links
Check over your blog posts to see if there are any opportunities to add new internal links. Links to other pages on your website that contain related and relevant content are a good way to improve on-site SEO. You can link old content to new content and vice versa.
12. Social Buttons
Making it easy for visitors to share your content is a simple way to build brand awareness. Make sure you include social sharing buttons, links, or floating social media icon bars on important web pages to encourage user engagement. Various tools are available, such as Click to Tweet, WP Social Sharing, and ShareThis.
13. Readability and Navigation
Look at your website as if you were a first-time visitor. Is the content easy to read? Is the navigation clear and helpful? You might need to add more white space to make content more scannable, or clean up your navigational links to make it easier for visitors to find whatever they’re looking for.
14. Call-to-Actions (CTAs)
Are your CTAs easy to see and clear in purpose? If you get CTAs right, you can encourage more visitors to take a desired action, which can dramatically improve conversion rates. Make sure every page includes one or two CTAs that are designed to help you achieve your marketing goals.
15. Forms and Comments
If you haven’t done so recently, try filling out one of the forms on your website. Is it simple to follow and does it work correctly? Does the comments section on your blog work? Fix any bugs and try to make each task easy to perform.
Over to You
Spring is the perfect time to reassess your website and give it some extra care and attention. Use these spring cleaning tips to fine-tune your website and make sure everything is in good working order, because addressing the details today will pay off in the long term.
Your business website will always be a work in progress, but hopefully these spring cleaning tips will help you to maximize your marketing potential and show your business in the best possible light for spring, summer, and beyond.