Monitoring your website is crucial
There are certain things that you know you need to check from time to time on your car. Is it time to change the oil? Does it need fuel? Is the tire pressure set right? The same is true for your website. There are some things you should be checking on at least monthly with your site. Monitoring your website is crucial to ensuring it remains an effective tool for engaging customers and driving growth. Here are three key elements to check on your website each month:
Contact Forms
Contact forms are a common connecting point between your and your customers. Ensuring your website’s contact forms are in optimal working condition is key for maintaining seamless communication and sales development. Here are a few simple steps to follow monthly for testing your contact forms:
- Submission Test: Periodically submit a test inquiry through your contact form to ensure it reaches your inbox. This simple action can reveal potential issues with email notifications or form submissions. If you are not receiving them, there could have been changes made to your email or hosting configuration that is causing the emails to go into spam or not be delivered at all. By doing a submission test monthly you can insure that they are going to the correct email box.
- Field Validation: Check if all required fields are functioning correctly. This helps prevent incomplete submissions and ensures you gather the necessary information from your audience. Check to make sure that ‘email’ fields are requiring emails and that a ‘Questions’ field still has plenty of space to type responses.
- Update Information: Review and update the contact form if new questions are needed or possibly not needed anymore. Keeping the questions asked updated can help to streamline your communication with clients when forms are submitted and ensure you’re asked the best questions to showcase your commitment to your clients as well.
Broken Links
Broken links can frustrate visitors and harm your website’s credibility and even tank your search engine rankings. Conducting a regular broken link check is essential for a ideal user experience. Here’s what you can do:
- Use Online Tools: Utilize online tools like Google Search Console or other link-checking tools to identify broken links on your website. Fix any broken links promptly to maintain a seamless navigation experience. There are also a wide variety of broken link checker plugins available for WordPress and even Chrome extensions to help in this search
- Update Redirects: If you’ve made changes to your site structure, update redirects to ensure users are directed to the correct pages. This not only enhances user experience but also positively impacts your SEO. These changes may be due to a typo on your part or because of a change on the website you were linking too. If you link to a news article, for example, that website could take that story down or change the link structure.
Special Announcements
Whether it’s holiday hours, special sales, or announcements, keeping your website content up-to-date is crucial. As I’m writing this blog, it is January 15th. Earlier today I was on a website that was still promoting their Holiday hours. We’re past Christmas and the Holiday season, including all 12 days of Christmas. Having that outdated information made me question how legitimate that business was. Here’s how to manage special announcements:
- Scheduled Reviews: Set a specific day each month to review and update any time-sensitive information on your website. This includes special announcements, promotions, or holiday hours. Remove outdated content promptly.
- Create a Content Calendar: Plan ahead for upcoming events or promotions and create a content calendar. This allows you to schedule updates and ensures that your website reflects the latest information relevant to your audience.
Incorporate Monthly Maintenance
By incorporating these monthly website maintenance practices into your routine, you’ll not only enhance the user experience but also demonstrate your commitment to staying current and responsive to your audience’s needs. Remember, a well-maintained website is a powerful asset in building and sustaining a strong online presence for your business.