4 Easy Changes to Improve Your Site
A business website is the sort of thing that people always want to update or fix, but never seem to get around to actually doing. You already know the benefits of great, SEO optimized website content: increased traffic and lead conversion. Despite understanding these perks, making the time to dive in and do the work can be hard. Well, now is the time to work on your website. Let’s get into why now and some easy changes that will make a big difference.
Crazy Times
With many businesses closing or reducing their onsite workforce and social distancing in full effect as a result of COVID-19, life as we’ve always known it is on hold. While the length of time quarantine measures will be in effect are unknown right now, the only thing for certain is that at some point business will go back to normal, or at least as normal as things will ever be again.
If you are fortunate enough to have your health, then now is a great time to work on your website. Partly because you may find you have a lot of time on your hands. Also, because the updates and improvements you make today will take effect months from now. So when business is picking up and people can get back to work, and back to spending money, your site will be operating at full capacity.
How Long Does It Take for SEO to Work
It normally takes about 4 – 6 months for website changes to take effect. So SEO changes you implement today will not deliver traffic for possibly half a year from now. However, these SEO results will continue to improve with time. You may see initial results in 6 months, those results should improve by the time you reach the 1-year mark.
Where to Start Improving Website Content
I’ve already covered easy tips to update your site. That’s a good starting point, but there’s more you can do to improve the look and function of your business website. Here are more tips for improving your website content.
1. Read Through Everything
Read through every bit of text of your current website. Look for anything that is dated, incorrect, or just no longer relevant. For instance, make sure phone numbers and emails are correct and active. If you feature your staff on the site then make sure that everyone who should appear on the site is there. At the same time, remove anyone who should no longer be there. Make sure all instructions and explanations make sense and still align with protocol and how your business normally operates. While it’s definitely important to make sure that the information on your site is correct, also be on the lookout for gaps or missing information. Formulate a plan to create any additional pages that can provide value and improve the customer experience.
2. Media Review
Review all of the images, graphics, and videos with the same careful attention you gave to the text. Again, you want media that is relevant, timely, and accurately represents your brand and the image you want to portray. It may be helpful to audit some competitor sites to see what they are, or possibly are not, doing. You obviously do not want to rip anyone off, but sometimes seeing what is possible (or what you definitely want to avoid) can be helpful and inspiring.
Do what you can in terms of updating the visuals. Depending on your capability or lack thereof, you may need to create a list of media needs to address at a future time. This is still a productive use of time and helps you be more organized when you can address these needs.
3. Plan Ahead
Consider creating a backlog of blog posts. Make the most of the time you have and knock out some blog posts now that you can use in the coming months. Really take your time to craft website content that fills any keyword gaps and don’t be afraid to go big. Writing longer blog posts that exceed 1,000, 2,000 or more words takes time, but if you have the capacity right now then go for it.
While you’re at it, consider creating a content schedule for the next 12 months. All this entails is looking at a calendar and figuring out what content you will need for your blog and social media over the next year. For instance, if you plan to run a sale or special around the holidays then pencil that in and plan the rest of your website content needs around that. Taking the time to plan now can help you stay focused and save time in the future.
4. Tackle the SEO
Get into the nitty-gritty of your site’s SEO. Look at how your site is structured and even the reading level of each page. Review inbound and outbound links. Look at the URL or slug for each page, review the categories and tags, make sure each and every page has an excerpt and keywords, add meta descriptions, and include your keywords in the meta fields. All of these fields really do nothing independent of one another. When all of these fields are properly populated, they can have a major impact on your site’s SEO.
Improve Your Website Content
Taking the time to make all of these changes to your website content can have a major impact on future traffic. These are crazy times. Ideally, things would be humming along like normal, but that is just not our current reality. Updating your website content can prove to be an effective use of your time and even a welcome distraction from current events. When things do pick up, you can focus on fulfilling orders, taking care of customers, and growing your business because your website is going to be good to go. If you have questions, need help or want to outsource some of your website content needs then let me know! I can write content for web pages or blog posts and even social media posts. I can also audit the SEO of your site, so we can figure out which areas need help.
