Treat your website like your garden to keep it looking fresh and growing strong
Spring is here, the grass is riz, I wonder where the birdies is?
Not sure where that little rhyme came from originally, but it often pops into my head at the beginning of spring.
It's always nice at this time of year to see new life bursting out of the parks and gardens that surround us.
Recently I’ve been cheering on a star jasmine that's finally starting to look lively. Last year it sort of spread its branches across my back fence but forgot to grow any leaves while it was at it. Now, with the warmer weather it seems to be coming good, and it’s been fascinating to watch it grow.
For my part I’ve added a good dose of blood and bone and kept up the water. I’m no green thumb, but it seems to be working. And it’s quite rewarding to see the plant responding to my efforts.
And of course all this care and attention and measuring of growth in my garden got me thinking about another important area that needs plenty of care and attention, namely our websites.
Your website is a living, breathing beast
Just like your garden, you put in a big effort at the beginning to get it set up, but you can't just leave it at that.
A garden needs water, fertiliser and maybe some weeding. Some plants grow faster than others. Some need a trim. Some don't work out and need to be replaced.
Your website is very much the same. Not that weeds randomly start sprouting in between blog posts, but it can get stale and dry over time if you don’t look after it.
So here are a few tips to help you keep your website looking fresh and growing strong
(1) Plan to add more content regularly to keep things fresh
The easiest way to do this is with a blog. The key word here is ‘regularly’. Whatever you do, don’t let your blog become like a dry, barren garden, with dried up brown shrubs down one side and hard-baked clay where the lawn used to be.
You must have a plan to add more content regularly. I’m not sure what’s worse, a blog with just one lonely article or a blog with several crusty old articles from three years ago.
Start with a basic content outline. Publishing one new article every day would be ideal, but probably feels unrealistic to begin with. So aim for one per month. That’s only twelve articles for the year. Surely you can think of twelve relevant and interesting questions or conversations you’ve had with customers that would be worth sharing.
You can write them yourself. They don’t have to be fancy, just be helpful. And if you really don't want to write them yourself, get someone in your team to do it or you could also hire someone to write them for you.
(2) Review existing content and give it a trim from time to time
Don’t forget to review your site regularly and remove anything that’s out of date.
Check the profiles of team members. If someone has moved on, make sure you remove them from the site. If someone got a promotion and their title has changed, make sure their profile is up to date.
Take a look at products and suppliers to make sure that’s all up to date. Get rid of anything that’s no longer relevant and add in anything that’s missing.
Also check for old promotions and seasonal messages. Nothing says ‘I don’t care’ like a bunch of Christmas decorations still hanging in April. Clear out any old sales messages and promotions that have expired or sold out so you’re not misleading your customers.
(3) Keep feeding traffic to your website
Website visitors, often called traffic, are the lifeblood of your site. You need to generate a steady flow of traffic from places like social channels, search (Google) and email to keep your site growing.
Create a plan for engaging with your market and potential customers in social channels. This could be tied to your content plan mentioned above in point 1. You don’t have to be everywhere on day one. Start with Facebook and get used to posting and engaging there. Once you’ve built some confidence there you could look at other channels later on like Instagram, LinkedIn or Pinterest, or whatever suits your business.
Also make sure your online business listings on directories are up to date and consistent.
(4) Share your great work and success stories
You’re out there working your guts out every day to help your customers and clients. You’re making a difference and these stories are worth sharing.
Exactly how you do it will depend on what industry you’re in. You might like to share some before and after photos. Maybe you’ve received emails from grateful clients and you can pluck out a few quotes. Or maybe you could write a whole case study detailing the transformation you helped create for one client.
These stories don’t have to be too fancy or complicated and you don’t have to have that many. The important thing is to have something recent and relevant to your audience.
(5) Measure what’s working on your website
As I mentioned earlier, I’m not a genius gardener, but when I saw the leaves of my passionfruit vine going yellow I was pretty sure something was up. Similarly, when I saw one particular ground cover spreading far and wide, I knew it was healthy.
In the same way you need some way to measure the health of your website. You need to check your performance regularly to see what’s working and what needs attention.
Installing Google Analytics will give you a good idea of what’s happening. This will tell you which pages are visited the most, how many people arrive at your home page and how many pages they view before they disappear.
You can get very specific in tracking all your website data, or you can just take in an overview. Do what works for you, but do make sure you’re checking some key metrics, otherwise you really don’t know how healthy your website is at all.
When you see that something is getting a high number of visits and people are spending a good amount of time there, you know it’s working well and so it’s probably worth sharing and promoting some more. If on the other hand you’ve got an article that’s getting no visits at all you can dig around for answers. Maybe it’s too hard to find? Or perhaps the headline could be improved. Try making a simple change and see if it improves.
The gardener’s guide to growing a fresher, stronger website
Just like your garden, your website needs to be looked after if it’s going to grow. It doesn’t need much, but a little regular care and attention can go a long way. A little extra content to keep things fresh and a bit of a prune to keep it tidy and clear out the old stuff. Then you need a healthy feed of traffic to keep it flourishing, and a keen eye to watch what’s happening and respond as needed. Finally, keep in mind that just like a thriving garden, a thriving website can reward you with boundless fruits, so it’s definitely worth the effort.
