Love is in the Air

As we approach Valentine’s Day wading through a sea of promotional emails urging us to declare our love in all sorts of ways, It has me thinking that love is definitely in the air.

As a business owner how much of that love is directed to your website?

For most business owners that would be very little if any at all, which is surprising given 80% of customers will look up a business online before working with them. If a potential customer can’t find you, can’t access your site or even worse have a negative experience your website will do you a disservice rather than help you gain business and get a return on your investment.

Like all investments websites need nurturing, updating and maintenance. In short, they need some love! What websites need basically falls into two categories: content and structure.

Structurally If your website uses a framework such as WordPress it’s vital that your WordPress and any plug-ins used are up to date. In addition, it is necessary to ensure that all security updates have been installed and you are running the latest version of PHP. If not, a site will become vulnerable and open to attacks that include malware and ransomware, which will have all sorts of ramifications including being potentially blacklisted by Google.

One misconception of website owners is that the web hosting will cover this which, unless specifically requested, it won’t. Most web providers will offer some sort of maintenance package, usually for not a lot more for regular monitoring and updating. You can log into your WordPress dashboard to see what’s out of date. If you’re not sure what to do, then get in touch with your web provider/developer or reach out to us.

Equally important to structural updates are content updates. In the digital age content is king and the best way to engage with potential customers is through your content. Keeping your content up to date helps to build trust with your customers as they rely on the information provided to make buying decisions. Regular updates to your content also help with your SEO and domain authority or more simply put, your Google ranking. Blogs such as this are another great way to have regular fresh content.

So, with a little love you can improve the performance of your website and reap the rewards.

If you are Unsure of how or where to start, please get in touch.