Written by Roberta Kiphuth, Detati Digital Marketing

Spring is right around the corner and that means Spring Cleaning! It’s that time of year when you get rid of the old, unused things that are cluttering your world. Well, sometimes our businesses or part of our businesses need spring cleaning too. Many of us spent time and money to get our websites launched, but then leave them to collect dust. So, now is time to clean them out.

Here are five things that can help clean up and improve your website:

1. Review and refresh your content.

  • Make sure that the messaging is current, clear and fits your target audience.
  • Add some new content or update what is there to keep the site fresh and searchable.
  • Start a blog (but, you have to commit to regular posting).
  • If you have a call to action, make sure it is clear and something of value to your client or potential clients

2. Make sure that your site has “Curb Appeal.”
Your site is often the first, and some times the only impression you make.

  • The trend is modern and user-friendly.
  • Check out competitor site or other site and incorporate things you like for their sites
  • Ask some of your friends or other who may not have ever seen your site to sit down and tell you their impression of what they see.

3. Get rid of Flash animations or other things that are slowing down your site.
Today people won’t wait for content to load, so you need to keep your site lean and clean.

  • If you have documents that are available, keep the files sizes as small as possible for quick download.
  • If you have images and photos, make sure they have been optimized for web use.
  • Flash animations or entire sites built in Flash are problematic. Not only can they be slow to load, but they do not function on  mobile devices, and content can not be indexed by search engines.
  • If you have video on your site or server, consider using a video service (such as Vimeo or YouTube) to host them.

4. Install Google Analytics or metrics to measure what is being viewed on your site.

  • Google Analytics is free and a good way to get some basic metrics on your site. Those pages that are not being viewed may be things that can be removed from your site or maybe they need some attention.
  • Set up a regular monthly schedule to review your metrics so that you can continue to optimize your pages and content for searches.

5. Update your site for better search optimization
Keywords are no longer helpful in increasing your search results, you need to create key phrases.

  • Have meaningful, informative titles on each page
  • Write the content for your audience, and not just to stuff in keywords
  • Have a clear and concise meta description in the header of the your home page
  • Add an html site map
  • Work on building inbound links from other trusted site (but not buying links)

Once you get your site cleaned up, make a regular schedule to go through the process again and again, so that your site stays refreshed and relevant.