Website maintenance: Keeping your site in tip-top shape
You know your website is important to your business, so you labored over the design, copy and search engine optimization. It goes live, and you celebrate! Now you can start changing things. It’s called website maintenance.
Don’t you love the flexibility of online marketing? We can keep making tweaks which allow us to be more successful as business owners.
Resist the urge to “set it and forget it” when it comes to your website because drawing in visitors is only the first step. Continue to create an engaging experience that turns visitors into F.A.N.S.
Your fans don’t just want to visit. They want to engage, participate, and believe in you — then they want to share it with others.
Turning website visitors into F.A.N.S. requires you to keep one of your eyeballs firmly on your online strategy, making website maintenance a regular part of your workflow. Your current and potential customers crave a site that is:
F — Fresh with updated content
A — Arresting to motivate action
N — Necessary and relevant to them
S — Singular in voice and brand
Let’s take a look at what each element of the process means for your online success.
Fresh content attracts fans
Think of your website like retail space. If you stopped into your favorite store and nothing ever changed, would you continue to return?
To keep your website content fresh, consider these tips:
- Add a blog or news and events page
- Update the site with pictures and videos of your activities
- Gather fresh testimonials
- Add your Twitter feed
Arresting design is simple
Decision fatigue plagues us every day as we’re asked to make hundreds of choices before noon. Heck, I can make 10 or more decisions to order coffee alone! It can be tempting to think of arresting design as the one with all the bells and whistles.
The truth is your customers, your fans, need a place for their eyes to rest.
As the Harvard Business Review article, “To Keep Your Customers, Keep it Simple,” explains, your customers need simplicity to make decisions. They want to know the one thing they must know to take action and they want the action step to be obvious. Simple. Done.
Analyze your site’s design
Part of website maintenance is regularly checking your site’s design for ease-of-use. Do you have enough white space? Is the text easy to read? Feel free to download our free checklist to help analyze the effectiveness of your website’s design and other elements.
Necessary and relevant content shows you’re listening
Do you have a website about plant care? Great! How much do you know about your customers to target your message in a way that solves their problems?
To understand what type of content your fans want, answer the following questions:
- What type of person, or persona, is most in need of the products and services you offer?
- What problem are you solving for your customer?
- How can you, and only you, solve that problem?
- How does your customer interact with you and your site? Hint: Try a customer sales journey map. Here’s a video to help you:
Remember to keep asking and refining. As your fans’ needs change, so should your content.
Develop a singular voice and brand
I could write volumes on this topic and someday I will, but not today. Today I’ll share the top tips that involve crafting a strong voice and brand.
Define a tone of voice. Are you more formal or personal? Is your content meant to teach or act as a platform for your views? Think about the feelings you want to leave your fans with after they interact with your business. Read this post for suggestions to help you define your brand’s voice.
Choose your words carefully. Are the pronouns you choose more personal (you, we) or more distant (the customer, the company)? Do you “create, engage, and inspire” or do you “make, interact, and instigate?” The words you choose say a lot about the experience your fans are about to have with your business. Revisit the copy on your website and update as needed to align your language with your brand’s tone of voice.
Tell your story. Your fans are interested in how you can help solve their needs in a way no one else can — because no one else is like you. As you continue to update your business website, think about fresh ways to tell your unique story through its content and design.
Website maintenance, one step at a time
By making website maintenance a core part of your online business strategy you can turn site visitors into true F.A.N.S. of your business. To recap, here’s how:
- Keep adding fresh content, including blog posts and social feeds.
- Ensure that your website design is clean and simple.
- Align your website content to your customers’ needs.
- Tweak your content as needed to reflect your brand’s voice and story.
Tell us what changes you’ve made to turn eyeballs into raving fans and how they’ve worked for you in the comments. Sharing is what fans do!
Originally published at Garage.