ARK BLOG
Spring Cleaning [Your Website] Has Never Been Easier
Hello Spring, it’s Chrissi – I’m so glad you’re here! The warmer weather, the longer days, and the blooming flowers couldn’t come soon enough this year. Not only does springtime bring all of the beautiful things, but it also brings the oh-so-wonderful pressure to spring CLEAN!
Although it can feel like a daunting task, studies show that nearly 9 of 10 Americans feel more relaxed when their home is clean, and here at ARK, we know that the same is true for business owners and their websites! What better time to clean up your website than now?! ‘Tis the season! We’re sharing a few tips to help you get started, and we promise, it’s not as scary as you think.
Check your links
Make sure all links on your website are working and that they take you where you expect them to go.
Few things are as frustrating as coming across a link to something you find interesting, or something you need to reference, only to find that the link does not work. Not only are broken links irritating to your readers, but they also can make your site disorganized and cluttered. More importantly though, they can also negatively affect your SEO. Broken links can sometimes happen as new pages and content are added to your site while other out-of-date content is not taken away. Manually checking link by link can be time-consuming and ineffective, so you might want to consider passing this task off to an outside digital marketing agency who can handle this for you.
Update your content
This may seem like a no-brainer, but small things like an old blog post showing up on your homepage, or having outdated resources and images linked to your content, can make visitors question if your business, or service, is still up and running. Here are a few things that can help!
(P.S. We can help you do these things too 😉)
Revisit Your Service Offerings
Have you added new services recently but haven’t added them to your site yet? Are you looking to double down on a particular service in the coming months and need to bolster your marketing efforts and draw more attention to your offering? Are you no longer providing a service that you once offered? These are all important questions to ask yourself when Spring cleaning your site content.
On top of double-checking that your service offerings are up to date, make sure any pricing on your website is correct as well. Nothing turns customers off more than inaccurate information, especially if that inaccurate information costs them more money than they had anticipated.
Update Company Photos
Spring is the season of “newness,” so use spring cleaning as an excuse to take new company photos. The makeup of your staff can change drastically over the course of a year, and it’s important that your website reflects those changes so potential customers know exactly who they will be working with. We recommend including posed team photos, candid shots, and new headshots. While you’re updating the staff photos on your website, make sure their job title and/or description is also accurate to their current position in your company.
Did you know that we also offer Branding Photoshoot services to all of our local clients as well? Contact us today to learn more!
Update your plugins & manage your security
Keeping the backend of your website up to date is just as important as keeping the front-end current and refreshed. Storing too many plugins on your website can slow down your load times. Make sure all plugins are updated to the most recent versions and uninstall plugins you know for certain are not being used on your site. Outdated plugins can expose security vulnerabilities on your website, so practicing plugin maintenance will help to keep your business’ and your customers’ information secure.
However, outdated plugins aren’t the only threat to your website’s security – you’re also dealing with defunct software, weak passwords, non-encrypted webpages, and so on. Spring cleaning your website should also include looking for vulnerabilities in your website’s security and creating an action plan to combat them. If these items are not done correctly, you may be faced with the gut-wrenching reality of lost progress on pages of your site, or even worse, losing all design elements of your site altogether.
This is why we recommend working with a marketing agency that helps you manage all aspects of your website, including plugin updates and security issues.
Take stock of things you don’t normally have time for
We all have that list of brilliant ideas our websites should have…one day. Well, make today that day! What major tasks have you been dreaming of but simply have never had the time to fulfil? From adding recent photos to your image gallery, building new pages to your website, or creating that new blog post, we recommend writing this list out. By materializing your ideas, you can create priorities and timelines. It’s much easier than keeping it all in your head and way easier for you to send to those who help you keep up with your website!
Ready to Spring Clean Your Website?
These little ARK-eteers of mine are getting their practice in early!
Check back soon for more posts from other team members!
As a reminder, setting aside time to spring clean your website doesn’t have to be a once-a-year occasion. Use this time to get yourself into the habit of making these routine checkups every few months to keep your website running optimally year-round. If the time commitment is holding you back from conducting routine website updates, consider investing in a web design, content, and maintenance package and let an experienced digital marketing agency (like ours!) handle the upkeep for you.
Sincerely,
Chrissi &
THE ARK CREW
As you read above, ‘tis the season to spring clean all of the things, but around the ARK office, ‘tis the season to also celebrate TWO very important birthdays!
Teri, our super awesome VPO & Creative Director, celebrated her birthday on April 9th, and our very talented Executive Administrator & Business Manager Chrissi will celebrate hers on April 30th. 🥳🥳🥳
If you see them around be sure to send lots of love their way as the ARK team is EXTRA thankful that these two amazing women were born! 😉
Also, check out Chrissi’s super adorable donkeys in their birthday hats! If you were having a bad day before, there’s no way those cuties didn’t brighten your day!
