A business website functions as a virtual store for your company. Here, you’ll be able to post your content, promotional campaigns, and portfolio to entice your customers. On the visitors’ end, this platform will serve as their direct contact with you, where they’ll be able to ask FAQs, order products, and create appointments.
With the increasing trend of online advertising in today’s industries, you must invest in a good website design. Doing so will dramatically increase your engagement with customers, allowing you to reach more of your target audience.
However, investing only in the development process will not ensure good long-term performance. Similar to how you would maintain the upkeep of your physical stores, websites also have to be regularly updated to ensure that their loading speed, content, and features are performing at optimum levels.
You might think that these maintenance tasks could cost much and have you wondering if spending money on websites is worth it. Fortunately, there are different ways to maintain your website for free.
DIY Website Maintenance Checklist
If you want to stay on top of the search ranking, make sure to follow this DIY maintenance checklist to help you save on costs:
Analyze Performance Data
A website’s online performance can be measured in different ways. Google Analytics can reveal to you some useful information, concerning your website’s current organic traffic, conversion rate, generated leads, search ranking, and page relevance.
By knowing all these, you’ll be able to determine the steps you need to take to fix issues and improve or maintain tasks in which your website is doing well.
Check Browser Compatibility
Your website should be accessible to all online visitors. However, websites may appear differently, depending on which browser visitors are using. Make sure to use a responsive web design that is easily accessible by all browsers. If you’re using a specific site builder, you may visit them regularly and have them update your site, so it can keep up with new tech developments.
Inspect Search Ranking
Search engine algorithms have to go through millions of websites daily through their search ranking process. By ranking the website based on relevance to the inquiry, they can better provide people with the correct match.
To do so, these algorithms use different factors as a metric to judge how well a website is performing. To know how you could improve, you may check your website’s current ranking and start from there.
Your main goal is to rank high enough so that you get included in the first search engine result page (SERP), where the majority of online visitors click. This can be done in different ways and one of which is through localized keywords.
By specifying your business location like “storage rental in North York”, you are helping algorithms to narrow down their search and pinpoint you to customers who are searching based on their area.
Update Old Content
People are always looking for fresh content. With the entire world experiencing new issues, trends, and experiences every day, to stay relevant and timely you have to update your website’s content regularly. Doing this can be achieved on your own.
You just have to be vigilant enough to spot the sudden changes and shifts in social media and the Internet. You can even simply revamp or update your old articles instead of creating new ones.
Backup Data
Hackers are rampant on the Internet. No website is safe, no matter how sophisticated its firewall may be. If you want to make sure of the safety of your website in times of power outage or hacking, save a backup version of your data. Files may also be in danger of getting corrupted, so make sure to create a safety net for them as well.
Test the Purchase Process
An excellent website experience will end a customer buying your product. This purchasing process in the eCommerce world is quite different from the physical interactions of traditional marketing.
Without an actual employee or person to communicate with potential customers, you only have to rely on the power of your website design. To see how effective it is, make sure to regularly test it to determine which factors to improve on.
Make sure to let the appropriate audience test it out as well. If you’re a company selling forklift rear post products, you can have a warehouse manager test the site.
Examine Loading Speed on Different Devices
A website’s loading speed must not go over a couple of milliseconds. Determine the loading speeds in various devices so you can remedy issues right away. Make sure to test this out to determine the performance of your site on different devices.
Fix Broken Links
Link building is an important SEO strategy that allows you to improve the search ranking of your site. However, if these links are corrupted and unable to redirect to the proper page, then it could lead to visitors exiting your site; increasing your bounce rate. Make sure to check your website’s links regularly and fix them when necessary.
Change Passwords Regularly
Unauthorized access to your site can be caused by weak passwords and security. To prevent any hacking and infiltration, make sure to change and update your passwords regularly. Random numbers with symbols are advised compared to using typical words such as “admin”.
Check Forms and Site Buttons
Another thing you need to consider is your site’s usability when it comes to the customer’s online experience. The functionality of Call-to-Action buttons, page formats, navigability, and content relevance should also be analyzed regularly.
You can remedy problems on this matter through complete website remodelling. To help you know more about this, you can always contact the nearest web design agency in Toronto.
Checking your website regularly is a crucial task. Being unable to keep up with the current online trends can significantly decrease its reach and effectiveness in generating leads.
It may seem daunting at first, as it will require some basic technical knowledge, but it can be learned. The best part of doing these things by yourself is you can save on costs. You can do these things for free if you are willing to invest much of your time and effort. Don’t be afraid to try these maintenance tips by yourself, because they will be the key to your online marketing success.