When you think about marketing your small business what jumps to mind first?
- Your website
- Your Social Media channels
If you said your ‘Social Media channels’ I can see why: They’re already there with an audience a click of the ‘like’ button away. They’re buzzy and vibrant and there’s always something to scroll and see next.
If you thought ‘your website’ then you’re talking my language. You see, your website is where your marketing should begin and then all the brilliant stuff you create there should feed through to your Social Media to back up what an amazing industry expert you are.
Notice I say ‘should’….. for many of us this isn’t the case. With so many ‘do it yourself’ websites or cases of ‘the disappearing developer’ there are lots of reasons people shove their websites to one side once they’re built and let them gather dust while they focus on their Social Media marketing.
What if I can get you to fall back in love with your website? What if that website then brings you in leads and makes you more sales?
Ready to give it a go?
Here’s what you need to do:
Is your website good enough?
This is a hard one because somewhere along the line you will have put a lot of time, thought, effort and money into your website. After that you probably let it slide a bit, after all, the big effort to get your website live surely would have some sort of longevity to it?
Nope. Sorry. Website design moves forward all the time. On top of which, sites you link to may no longer exist (broken links are a big no-no for getting found on Google).
Action: Grab a cup of tea, a pen and paper and spend some much needed time with your website. Check all the links are working (including navigation, calls to action, and links within posts). Check you’re still happy with the design, review the text. Make notes of any changes you’d like to make.
The alternative way
f you don’t want to/don’t have time to do this, use a website review service where a website designer will review your website and give you an action plan for improving it.
Create a plan of action
Once you’ve made notes create an action plan which is:
- realistic
- achievable
There may be a lot on there and there may be some things you need help with so make sure you block out a good amount of time for this task and don’t expect yourself to have done it all in 24 hours. Unless you’re looking to have a nervous breakdown that is!
The alternative way
If you’re time-poor, don’t feel technically confident or would like to update the design beyond your current skillset book a website designer to do the work for you.
Plan it out
Set out a plan for how you’re going to make changes on your website before you actually logon. Website designers do this at the start of website builds it’s called wireframing. It’s where we plot what is going to go on the pages and how it’s all going to link up. You can then approach the changes to your website in a linear manner which will help you stay on top of it all.
The alternative way
Get a website designer to do this bit for you. If you really want to have a go yourself, consider booking a power hour with a designer where you can talk the design/ideas and process through with them before you get started.
Let everyone know about it.
Just as you would shout about your beautifully decorated house or flourishing garden, it’s important to let everyone know about your new and improved website. And by everyone I mean Google and the other major search engines.
Action: Install an SEO plugin on your website (Yoast is my favourite free one), setup a Google Console account and pop your website details on there. Don’t forget to register your website with Bing so you’ll come up in search results when people ask Alexa for info.
The alternative way
This bit can be fiddly and boring. Either find a website developer willing to do this or jump into my Website Coaching Academy where our resident Website Mechanic will talk you through the process (If you ask nicely he may even do it for you).
Keep on top of it
Just as you wouldn’t allow your house to gather dust, cobwebs and host a family of pigeons in your roof, it’s important you take the same approach to your website.
In reality this means
⭐️ Keep your plugins up to date. Ideally weekly, definitely monthly.
⭐️ Check up on your server environment – are you running the latest php version, are there any errors on the console?
⭐️ Do a quick website walk-through – is everything displaying correctly? on mobile as well as desktop?
The alternative way
Choose a monthly maintenance package from a website developer and let them take care of all this for you.
Make the most of it
After investing all this time, effort and energy in your website the best thing you can do is keep the momentum going.
Block out some time in your diary so you can update the content frequently.
⭐️ Publish blog posts
⭐️ Change up the images
⭐️ Update the text regularly
Google will prioritise your site because of it so more of your customers will see it and they’ll always be seeing it at its shiny best.
Make sure everyone knows you’ve got an amazing website you’re proud of. Pop the link in your email signature, and always offer your website details when offering phone number/email addresses.
What do you think?
Are you ready to give it a go? Or does it feel daunting even with the instructions? This could well be the case when you’ve had a website built for you and are now left to manage it yourself. Or if you built your site so long ago you can’t really remember how you did it.
If you’d like some advice or just some reassurance on how to turn your website into the best version of itself you can book a complementary call with me using the button below.
Love this article and keeping my website up to date is now part f my daily method of operation (DMO) for my busines
I’m glad you love this post, I loved writing it! Love your DMO – I need to implement that in my business, too!