4 Things you can do today to refresh your website
What does spring cleaning have to do with website maintenance? Well, I’m glad you asked!
I don’t know about you, but the garage is one place in my home that is easy to ignore all winter long. During those cold months, I don’t want to go in there and tidy up, but anything in the house that I don’t have a place for gets stuffed in there. When spring finally arrives and the weather warms up, I know it is time to get in there and organize. It can feel overwhelming at first, but when I have a plan (donate things, trash things, and put things away) it feels much more manageable.
Website maintenance can feel overwhelming too. There are so many details to look after, but it doesn’t have to feel overwhelming if you have a plan. Spring is here, and it is a great time to clean up your website. Here are four easy things you can check today to keep your website up to date:
1. Your Website Footer
This one is so easy to overlook, but actually really simple to maintain. Take a look at your copyright in your footer. Make sure that your Copyright is up to date with a date range from the year your website was published to the current year. (example: Copyright © 2020-2022). You can update this manually each year, or you insert a piece of code in your footer to keep up to date with the current year.
2. Your About Page
We often update our audience on social media about things that are going on in our lives and in our business, but updating the About page goes on the back burner. Your potential client may recognize that your page doesn’t match your current posts and assume that your whole website is out of date. Take a few minutes to make sure that the information included on your about page is still true and accurate.
3. Your Offers
It is common for your offers to evolve as our businesses grow. Maybe you don’t want to offer a particular service anymore, or perhaps your clients have a need that you can start to offer a solution for. Have a high demand service? Maybe it is time to increase your prices. Or, maybe you have already made some of these changes. Take another look at your Services/Offers page. Does it list only your current offers? If your prices are listed, is it time to update them?
4. Monthly Website Maintenance
If you are not a website designer/developer, you may not be keeping up with your website on a regular basis, but even taking a look quarterly (or at the start of a new season) can make a big difference for your website. First, make sure that you have a current backup of your website. Many servers do this automatically, but if your’s doesn’t, you can use a free plug-in, like Updraft Plus, to create a backup of your website. Once you have your backup, update all of your plugins, one at a time. If you do not update your plugins on a regular basis, your website will eventually suffer slowdowns and security risks. Perform your website maintenance to help keep things running smoothly.
It is easy to get your website set up and then forget about it, but checking-in periodically and keeping things current will help it to keep working for you-attracting and converting those would be clients!
Next Steps:
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