Third Quarter Check Up

Are you a business owner? If you are, I wanted to remind you that it’s officially the 3rd quarter.  You know what that means? It’s time for your 3rd Quarter Website Check Up!

Businesses are a lot like people in the way that they need check-ups.  They develop and grow over the year and need to check up on to see how they’re doing compared to the last year.  We as people are recommended to go in for our yearly checkup. At least, that’s what we’re supposed to do. I’m sure at least half of you reading are trying to think exactly when your last checkup was but now think about that last time you checked up on your business’s website. So many people work on a site and then leave it as is since the time they published it.  But does it really represent who you are today?

Your website is a way in which people who don’t know you get a chance to see what you’re like before they even meet you. As the saying goes, first impressions truly do matter. Wouldn’t you want them to see your business as you view it today and not the last time you updated your website 6 months ago, dare I even say longer than that?

Why should you do this now?

Think about the beginning of the year and all those New Year resolutions and goals that you made. The third quarter is exactly the halfway point to the end of the year.  Do you think your business is reaching those goals? If you had goals regarding sales, exposure, marketing, etc. your website can influence exactly how successful you are at the end of the year.

Check up on your website with these tips:

1.Review

Review your website for basics spelling and grammar mistakes. I know this is a “DUH” point, but let me tell you how many times I’ve seen words misspelled on a business’ website.  Having these simple mistakes can discourage potential customers and question your credibility.

You should also take some time to review the navigation of your site to see if it’s easy and fast to search through. Did you know that 53% of shoppers expect their websites to load faster than two seconds?  TWO SECONDS!!! That’s ridiculously fast and puts a lot of pressure on the website to not drive away potential customers because of the lack of speed and feasible navigation of the site.

2. Evaluate, Measure, and Establish accountability

At this time of the year, you have to evaluate and measure your business by asking yourself and your team a few questions: Are you hitting your goals? Are you getting the results you expected? What are your top priorities?

This is the time to look back at the SMART goals you made at the beginning of the year and analyze the progress of your goals and how well they are measuring up to your expectations. For more on SMART goals, check this article by SameWave.

A way to measure this is by setting up Google analytics on your website.  Google Analytics is a free tool that you can collect data from and analyze exactly how well you’re meeting your goals.  With this, you can determine how you should strategize for your marketing material, see what trends/topics you should focus on, and what areas need more attention.

Once you establish your goals and answer these questions, establish accountability and make actionable plans to use this new knowledge to set yourself up to reach your goals for the rest of the year.

3. What’s popular? What are your strengths?

Your website holds a majority of the information you want people to know about your company. Check what pages are popular and what topics people are interested in knowing more about so you can develop your strengths. Like all businesses, we all have our strong suits and acknowledging them to make them noticeable to the public will help strengthen your brand as the best in this field.

People will start to look to you for knowledge and guidance to make sure your content is easy to digest and shareable so they can spread your knowledge.  This will go miles for you. This is free publicity from followers and only takes a share button on each page to get viewed by thousands of people. So if you don’t have a share button on your website,  do it now before the end of the year!

4. What was unsuccessful?

Did you try something that didn’t work?  Did you take the time to really think what and why it didn’t work or did you brush it off and pretend like it never happened?

Look at some of the action items you have for your website and how they’re working for you.  Just to name a few actionable items on your website: sign up now, get a quote, join the mailing list, schedule an appointment, or call now. Keep track of how well your actionable items are doing, and if they are unsuccessful, think about different ways your website can encourage your viewers to take action.

A lot of the time, we learn more from our unsuccessful endeavors versus our successes.  Take a breath and use this as a lesson on your business journey.

5. Does your content need updating?

Businesses are like humans and develop and change over time.  Is your business’ content in-line with what you’re doing now? Is your content out of date? If you use to sell a certain item or service before but don’t anymore, update that on your site so you’re current with your business position.  Check in with your past and current content and if they have broken links or an out-of-date meta title and description, update it. Right now is the time to catch up on those little things that make a big difference when it comes to the way people see your business.

We’re almost there!  I know 2018 is flashing before our eyes, but it isn’t too late to make these changes.  Doing this now is better than never, and will position you better for the rest of the year.  Keep pushing and reach your goals these next few quarters!