Building your company website can take some dedicated time and effort, but is it ever truly finished?
Have you built and abandoned?
Your website is supposed to work for you, and not the other way around, so it should be consistently driving traffic and revenue for your business. This is never going to happen if you neglect or abandon it.
It is surprising how many companies will have a bespoke website built to perfectly suit their business needs, then just as swiftly forget all about it. You may have worked very hard to get your website up and running, but then can easily be distracted by other important jobs, leaving the website to languish in the ether. Your website is a powerful tool, so treat it right and it will pay you back great dividends.
Make web maintenance part of your routine
Every business has a day to day routine involved in keeping it running efficiently, so try to think about website maintenance as a part of your essential routine too. You have built a solid foundation, so now it it time to work in ongoing input to keep it working for you. By doing this you will start to see a return on your investment.
Here is why you should include maintaining your website into your routine:
- Your website is the face of your company. It is the first thing prospective business partners will check out after meeting you. It is important to have up to date information to show new clients and customers to convince them that you are a professional company that is ready and willing to do business.
- In business, first impressions count! Go and take a look at your website.
- What is the first impression you get of your own site?
- Is your ‘latest news’ a year out of date?
- Is your latest sale or special offer still running on your site with an expiry date that ran out 2 months ago?
If so, what sort of impression are you giving, and how many prospective customers will walk away because of it? If you can see issues like this with your site, you have some work to do!
Look after your existing customers
You may have the best customer service in the world, and can reel off a whole list of satisfied customers. However, you will still need a reason for your customers to keep on coming back to you. It is easier to keep an existing happy customer than to attract a new one, so making sure your website can give your customers what they need will ensure they will come back for more.
Keep updating your site with fresh content so there is something new to read on a regular basis. Provide helpful information so your customers can accomplish their goals. Entice them back for repeated sales with your latest sale or special offer that you offer through your newsletter or blog.
Decide on a plan of action. Schedule in a new blog post or informative article or news update two or three times per week. This way you will be offering fresh and interesting content that will help to build and solidify a trusting relationship with your new and existing customers.
Get your website known on Google
You will never get your website noticed if you don’t keep feeding it the fresh content that search engines love. The more often you update your site, the more search engines will spider your site and boost your rankings in results. A stale site that has not been updated in a while will be ignored by the search engines and you will quickly see your page rankings slide.
Keep your web security up to date
Neglecting your site will mean you are missing out on important security updates, patches and bug fixes. Many critical updates will need in-person authorisation rather than automatic updates, and failing to keep on top of the latest security measures will leave your site vulnerable to hackers.
One of the main ways hackers gain access is through outdated software. How would you feel if any of your customers or web visitors were to get infected by viruses downloaded from your site?
Google will more than likely de-list your site if they detect your site is infected with malware, so it is in your best interests to keep your site safe and well maintained.
Winners Web & Graphic Design supply blog and social media management to leave you free to run other aspects of your business. We write content which your visitors will be interested in and thus increase your website index rankings. Our method is to research your area of business in order to create interesting, factual content. The right content will put you in the driving seat when it comes to your business. Regularly updated blog posts and social media plays an important part of your marketing strategy, your website rankings and can generate high levels of traffic to your website and keep it coming back. Winners Web & Graphic Design also offer pay per click services to keep your website on page 1 of Google.