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Make Your Website Your Best Salespersons

When we work with companies to create a new website, we often use the analogy that building a website is a lot like building a house. And when your house is finally built, you’ve moved in, add new stuff, and rearrange things, sooner or later your house tends to get a bit messy.

Your website is no different. If it’s been weeks, months, or (God forbid) years since you’ve looked at or updated your website, now is the time to do it. It can be hard to figure out what needs to be done, so we’ve put together a checklist of 5 essential things to check on your website.

1) Do you have current and relevant information?

Services change, new employees start, other employees leave, and pictures & information get outdated. If you have clearly outdated info on your site, visitors may wonder if all information is outdated.

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Here’s what you can do:

    • Check your pages for outdated or irrelevant info
    • Update your testimonials or success stories

2) Does everything still work?

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Upgraded tools & browsers can end up breaking things on your website. It’s no one’s fault, but interactive features that worked 5 years ago may not work anymore.

Here’s what you can do:

    • Test out your interactive features to make sure they all still work
    • Re-test any forms on your site to make sure that a) the fields work, b) it can still submit, and c) the info gets sent to the correct email address or database
    • Test your site's search tool (If you have one) to make sure correct results are coming up
    • Test your image rotator or image gallery to make sure they still transition correctly and there are no broken images

3) Broken links?

Broken links are going to happen. Even the biggest Tech companies in the world have broken site-links. According to linktiger.com, top tech companies have a broken-link average of 2.4%. So if you have a few, don’t feel bad. This is a pretty simple fix but it is something companies often neglect to do.

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Here’s what you can do:

    • Test your site for broken links
    • Fix broken links
    • Remove old links that can't be updated

4) Consistent formatting?

Inconsistencies in website content formatting or just plain bad formatting is one of the most common things that can happen as website text gets updated over months and years. This is especially true if there are multiple people updating the site. Consistent formatting through out your site is important to keep your company looking professional and trustworthy as well as making information easy to find.

Here are some common issues:

    • Website text formatting hierarchy isn’t used in the right place. (For instance, all the page text is large, bolded subtitle styling...We’ve seen this happen!)
    • Text is pasted directly from Microsoft Word, which keeps Word's styling and makes the content look strange
    • Every single style, color, and font is used in no logical order
    • No styling is used and it’s one big block of text (Which is hard to read)

website-bad-formatting

Here’s what you can do:

    • Check your site pages to make sure text follows the same format consistently
    • Look for text that seems off compared to the rest of the site. This could indicate that text was pasted directly from Microsoft Word

5) Need to freshen up?cinderella-transformation-o

Trends in web design change frequently. In order to keep your site from looking dated, we recommend that you consider a redesign every 3-4 years. If this is a challenge, there are still actions you should take to keep your site looking fresh.

Here’s what you can do:

    • Check website photos to see if any look outdated
    • Update employee photos if it’s been a few years
    • Consider replacing stock photography with photos from a professional photo shoot

Want to get started on cleaning up your website and get it looking professional again? Download a copy of this list for your future cleanups!

 

Download this Complete Checklist to Prepare for a Website Redesign

A cross between a worksheet and checklist, the Website Redesign Checklist:

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  • Helps you understand the redesign process.
  • Establishes vital information and plan your strategy.
  • Provides free resources and tools to optimize your website.
  • Allows you to achieve your website goals.

Your website is a powerful marketing tool. Be confident in its design and functionality. Download your free copy of the Website Redesign Checklist and get started.

Download Your Checklist