Websites don’t necessarily need a checkup because they’re sick, but because you want to practice preventive medicine. Your website should be checked on a regular basis so that small items can be addressed before they become big projects.
Your website will not be up-to-date without your continued effort
How many times have I told clients that doing nothing is the same as moving backwards? I know, I know: everyone is busy. You don’t have time to monitor your website 24-7. But having said that, if you have not reviewed it in a while (a month, a quarter, a year) it’s likely that some information needs to be updated, changed, or deleted. In fact, the entire website may need an overhaul.
Your competition is moving forward, even if you are not. Even if there are no problems with the website, your competitors are building and updating websites, causing you to fall behind. Any time they make changes after your last overhaul, they may be one-upping you.
Your website needs to keep up with technology changes. At the rate technology changes, new features, functionality, trends, and usability realizations show up every day. Your web designer may be making incremental changes to your website based on these changes, but unless you are specifically requesting it, that could be unlikely.
Take 5 minutes and run through this list, just to make sure your site is up-to-date:
- Contact information: Have any of these items changed: location, phone, fax, e-mail, hours of operation?
- Staff: Is the staff list current? Do bios, CVs, or photos need updating?
- Resources: Are all of the resources listed still current? Are new resources available to add to the list?
- Links: Do all off-site links still work?
- Content: Do you need updates to photos, descriptions of services or products, prices, calendar items, coupons/expiration dates, news coverage, giveaways, contests, videos, case studies, featured clients, testimonials?
- Navigation & Architecture: Is your information still organized in the best possible way to reach your audience? Have you added any new specialized audiences? Have new pages been added to the architecture one by one? It may be time to take a step back and reorganize from a fresh perspective.
- Graphics: Has your logo been changed or updated? Do your newer marketing materials have a different look?
- Social media: Do you now have Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, or other social media channels that are not linked to your website?
- Search engine results: Is your website ranking where you expect it to on search engines? Results can change based on changes in ranking algorithms and whatever your competitors may be doing to improve their own results.
