5-point checklist to supercharge your company’s website

Now is a great time to take a look under the hood of your company’s website to make sure it’s a high-performance marketing machine.

website-tune-up-steps

Get more mileage from your website by giving it a tune up

You don’t have to be an expert web mechanic to make improvements to your organization’s website. Depending on how long it’s been since you launched the site, you might find you need minor service, a few new parts, or major service to really improve performance. Minor services might be something you can fix yourself; major services might require the help of your web team.

1. Handling

Take your website out for a drive to get an overall impression of its performance

A good test drive can help you determine how much work you’ll need to do to get your company’s site in top condition. To decide whether the site handles well, do a visual inspection, find out how easy it is to get where you’re headed without continually adjusting your course, and see how the site responds in various conditions.

Minor Service:

  • Can a visitor quickly determine who your company is and what you do?
  • Does the overall look-and-feel match the image your company wants to project?
  • Is the site visually pleasing with a clean layout and information organized into logical sections?

Major Service:

  • Does the site perform on desktop, tablets, and smartphones and on different browsers?

2. Styling

Inspect the paint job, options, features, and finishes on your company’s site

The right look and feel for your company’s website can be like the difference between a luxury vehicle and a pickup truck. Sure, they both get you there, but you want your site visitors to travel in style.

Minor Service:

  • Does the imagery capture the attention of the user?
  • Do the images position your company as a leader in the market?
  • Are the images of a consistent style, size, and placement?
  • Are the images current and unique to your company, not stock photos and clip art?
  • Is there a unified color palette that supports your company’s branding?
  • Are colors used consistently in links, headlines, and buttons?

Major Service:

  • Are you using the web version of your corporate font instead of Arial?
  • Do the font size and the colors make pages easy to read?
  • Is the design of all the sections of the site consistent?

3. Engine

Pop the hood and make sure your organization’s website is firing on all cylinders

When you look under the hood to check out all the content on your company’s site, make sure the pages are full of valuable, up-to-date content for customers and search engines.

Minor Service:

  • Does the home page explain exactly what your company does and how you are unique?
  • Is it easy to find a way to locate your office, including a physical address or map?
  • Can visitors easily find ways to contact your organization by phone, email, and using a form?
  • Do you include a variety of content on the site, including text, images, and video?
  • Are the links all working and do they all lead to live pages?
  • Are there misspellings and grammar errors on the site?
  • Is the information on all pages of the site current, accurate, complete? Check addresses, phone numbers, emails, employee information, product names, pricing, events, news, and photos.

Major Service:

  • Does your company have a blog or news page that is regularly updated?
  • Is all the copy on the site HTML text, not type in bitmapped images?
  • Is all the information in HTML pages instead of PDFs or other downloadable documents?

4. Navigation

Make sure your site navigation helps visitors find what they need and get where they’re going, using the shortest route

Have you ever found yourself going in circles trying to find something on a website? It can be frustrating and tedious if your company’s website navigation doesn’t help customers get where they’re going quickly and easily. With a clear and helpful navigation system, visitors will never have to ask for directions again.

Minor Service:

  • Is the website navigation simple and easy to use?
  • Does clicking on the logo take you back to the home page?
  • Are the main menus the same on every page in your company’s site?
  • Do titles in the navigation match titles and content on the pages?
  • Is the sub navigation style and functionality logical and consistent throughout the site?

Major Service:

  • Does the navigation menu show which page a visitor is on?
  • Are there breadcrumbs to show where the visitor is on the site?
  • Can a visitor get to every area of the site from the home page, or with just a few clicks?
  • Is there on-site search?

5. Fuel

Turbocharge your website with a combination of high-octane tactics

The best way to boost an engine’s power is to increase the amount of air and fuel it burns. You can boost your website’s power by increasing the amount traffic to your website with a combination of search, advertising, email, and social media marketing.

Minor Service:

  • Do you include targeted keywords and phrases on every page to bring organic search traffic?
  • Do you update your content on a regular basis?
  • Do you share links to your site regularly on social media, bookmarking, and review sites?

Major Service:

  • Do you have a paid advertising program and banner ads that bring targeted traffic to your site?
  • Do you send regular emails to your subscribers to lead them to you website?
  • Have you made it easy to share content on your site thorough social sharing plug-ins?

Just like a car tune up, you don’t have to do all of these checkups every time. But with a system of regular maintenance, you can make sure your website is ready to go the distance.