Website Tune-Up

Excuse me, but I am taking a few minutes to pat myself on the back: I just completed my first website tune-up of 2009!

I won't go into any long winded explanations or step-by-step instructions, but I can certainly recommend some key points to freshen things up for the new year! (Some of these tips may not work well for flash websites.)

5.5 FREE TIPS:

1. Check the expiration of your domain name. Tell the search engines you plan to be in business for a long time by pushing your domain renewal back for at least three to five years.

2. Update the dates and links referenced on your site. If your website footer reads "Copyright 2006" it need to be updated immediately. Ideally you should list a span, such as: Copyright © 2001 - 2009. Also, delete references to past events that might date your site (with obvious exception to your history of work or resume of experience). Test all the internal links on your site to ensure that navigation is fully functional. Delete any outbound links that are 'dead'.

3. Have you checked your stats lately? There's a multitude of ways you can do this. One way is through Google's product "Analytics". Analytics is free and I was able to get it up and running myself. If you have some general knowledge of reading html code, and you have access to edit your site, you can probably do this yourself too, and it will cost you nothing. Otherwise, you can ask your webmaster to implement this technology on your behalf. A second option would be through your web host. Some hosting services offer tracking as part of the hosting package, or as an add on service. Statistical information regarding your website traffic is usually easy to decipher from these types of sources. There's nothing for you to set up, per say, you just log in and review the info.

Checking your stats will give you key information about the most visited pages on your site, how long visitors spend reading or reviewing the info, how many visitors by day, week, month, etc.

4. Take a look at your page titles; that's the information that pops up at the very top of the browser and provides the primary description for your product or service. You may want to lengthen them or shorten them. First things first: Each page on your website should have a unique title or at least be customized to reflect the content of the page. If the title bar on every page of your site reads the same, you should make the appropriate revisions to differentiate them, thereby increasing the relevance of your keywords, content and search results.

5. Purchase multiple versions of your company name. Why? For starters, this will prevent the brand confusion that results when a start up company selects the same or similar name to yours. Also, it helps customers find you even if they spell your company name incorrectly or can't recall the exact web address (this happens ALL the time!). Think about the way you use the web and how you search for others, then reverse the process to create additional avenues for customers to find you. Then, be sure to "point" all the secondary domains to your website.

5.5 BACK UP YOUR SITE !! If you can't do it yourself, ask your webmaster to do it for you.

One final recommendation: Don't' forget to run a Copyscape scan to document and protect the integrity of your content. If you are the true and original author of the content, you will surely want to know if someone has plagiarized your work. Also, plagiarizers beware: website content can be authenticated all the way back to the launch date of a site.

I welcome any comments you may have. And please feel free to share your favorite, fast & easy tune-up tips as well!

© 2009 E. Delgardio All Rights Reserved