Similar to oil changes, tire rotations, lube jobs, tune-ups, and other general maintenance for your new car, your new website is going to need some love now and then too.
Whether you bought your nephew a steak sub in exchange for his time, or hired a top nation-wide company to do your website, it’s going to need 'maintenance’.
This comes to many as a surprise. The simple mindset is there… “I have a website; it’s fully built and functional, let it do its job.” But I propose the question to you – are you maximizing your exposure and getting the most out of your potential customer? Let’s look into this a little further.
Is it Working? – Are you sure your combination of pictures and texts in the best combination to close the deal? Did you know just changing 3-5 words could change reactions, leads, and sales on your website? We’ve been around long enough to notice just how impactful this can be. On one insurance website, changing a young lady smiling, to a picture of a happy husband and wife with two kids, sold a ton more policies on average. You need to constantly be doing A-B testing to see which combinations of content works for you, in your industry!
What’s New? – We know first-hand just how much your work can improve and change over the years. Making sure your content is updated to reflect your top quality of work is a biggie in the online world. If you build houses and your online portfolio shows new home interiors from 10 years, instead of the new house you built last week with the steam shower, movie room, and sauna – it might be time for some updates. The best way to keep your site up to date is by having a content management system that allows you to manage the content easily, so that updates can be done at any-time, and at no extra cost!
You do that too? – Many companies have bad habits of not updating the services they provide as their company grows. Making sure your website has everything under the sun you offer should be a high priority when considering what content you want to put on your website and update your site with. Even in today’s society, where we all want instant gratification, people still like to do their research and look around and learn more about a company they are going to hire or buy from – make sure their not overlooking you because of a lack of information. Adding new products and services, new promotions, and/or pictures requires minimal effort but could have a huge impact on your customers.
New Innovations – In case you’re unfamiliar with the web and online technology – one thing you need to know is it is an ever-growing world. Much like cell phones you pay for today that are outdated tomorrow, new ideas will be being implemented left and right. A great example that is on the rise now, is what we discussed a few weeks ago (Using Facebook's 500 Million Users To Your Advantage), Facebook Like and Comments. Facebook Like and Comments, among many other new implementations, is a great way to take advantage of Facebook’s 500-million-user database, and help your great product/service go viral. (For you oldies: Viral-- vi·ral/?v?r?l; Noun: An image, video, advertisement, etc. that is circulated rapidly on the Internet.)
The biggest thing you can do to stunt your online growth is to not update your website. Letting people think you and/or your company has grown stale, or put questions in their head such as “Are they still around?” or “Have they fallen behind their competition?” is nothing you want to take more time out of your already-busy day to attend to.
Also, keep in mind that while there are many practices you can put in place to keep your website fresh, we recommend making sure your website is up to par before doing so. Similar to dumping money into a used car, you don’t want to break the bank trying to band aid that old website. If you need someone to consult with regarding the status of your website, we’re here to help, and would love to talk.
Basch Solutions, LLC – a Rochester Website Design and Website Development company, has been building content management systems for their clients in almost every industry since 1999. Have a look at their portfolio to see some of the many success stories they boast @ www.baschsolutions.com/portfolio
