When was the last time you took a look at your small business’s website?  I bet you set it up a few (or maybe not so few!) years ago, spurred on by your nephew, daughter, or friend and have not done anything to it since.  As part of your spring cleaning you should take a pass thru your website to see if it is up-to-date and correct.  Better yet, consider hiring a professional (usually a marketing professional) to give it a once over.  Don’t be afraid that they may want to redo the entire site – they may well suggest that.  That is how they make a living, after all!  Insist that they just do a review with a list of suggestions and a cost to implement each suggestion.  Pick what seems appropriate to you and that you can afford.  You may even be able to make some of the changes yourself.  Areas to consider:

• It sounds simple but I bet I can pull up 10 websites and at least 9 of them are dated earlier than 2010.  If I am a potential customer and see your website hasn’t been updated since 2007, it doesn’t give me warm, fuzzy feelings about your business.  Having no date isn’t a great option either; customers and prospects want to know that you are keeping up with things in and with your business.
• Re-read the text; does it still make sense today?  Does it still have the same voice you want to have represent your business?  Or is it too stilted and formal?  Social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) has driven the Internet to a less formal, more intimate voice.  You should still be professional online but you may want to consider your language in relation to changes happening on the Internet.
• Are your products, services and prices up to date?  You should certainly update them if they are not.  If you don’t specify your products, services or prices you may want to consider adding them.
• Consider adding links to social media (and diving into social media if you aren’t already there).
• Make sure you site is search engine friendly – and by that I mean with today’s search engines.  The search algorithms change constantly; your site might have performed well in 2007 but might not now.
• Update graphics or photos if they look dated.
• Make sure you site is loading quickly.  Not only does this add to a better user experience, the search engines are starting to “grade” sites on their performance.  Slow-to-load sites will be penalized.
• Your customers and prospects want to know about who they are doing business with.  Consider adding an ‘about us’ section and be sure to include affiliations, etc.
• Finally, make it easy for folks to contact you.  So many sites force users to use their sign up form – this is a convenience for the site owner businesses, NOT for the user.  Sure, it automatically updates your email list but if I want to talk to someone NOW I want to have a phone number available or an email address I can use directly.

These are a few ideas for “spring cleaning” your website, to add a little spit and polish to your online presence.  If you have other ideas, I’d love to hear them!

I have written a number of posts the past few months about how important it is for small businesses to be aware of and to improve their local online presence.  Local search is getting big on its own and with the advent of mobile search it is critical that small businesses stake their claim in local business searches.

GetListed.org is a great tool to use for this.  You simply enter your business name and it checks the presence of your business on (at this point) four websites – Google, Yahoo, Bing and Best of the Web.  If you don’t have a listing it gives you links to each for setting up your business on the sites.  If you do have a listing it shows gives you a snapshot of how strong your listing is – do you have pictures, citations (references from other sites) and reviews?

In addition to the four search engines listed above, GetListed.org links you to other search websites that frequently get referenced by Google, etc.  These include Superpages.com, Brownbook.net and Yelp.  Unfortunately this service seems West Coast based – sites that are used heavily here in the Atlanta area such as Kudzu.com aren’t included…yet.

There is a lot of helpful information about boosting your local search presence in one place with GetListed.org.  I highly recommend that every small business owner go there and get started with raising their local search visibility.  Set up your local listings and read the hints and tips.  In addition, I suggest adding it to your to-do list to go out there every few weeks and make sure you are listed where you should be.

How strong is your local search presence?

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