For our very first blog post of 2023, we want to share our top tip for small businesses. After a nice long Christmas break, it can feel hard to get back into the swing of things – the Christmas chocolate’s still calling you from that Roses tub under the coffee table, and your body clock isn’t quite back to normal yet.
We’re sure there are many things vying for your attention right now – clients who’ve got new projects, jobs you need to do around the house, that diet you’re going to start, or things you need to straighten out within your business. Whilst these are all, undoubtedly, important, it’s also important to not stop planning for the rest of the year.
Which brings us to our top tip: check your website.
We don’t mean “visit it and check it still exists” (though this uh… probably isn’t a bad idea if you’ve not been on it for a while. The number of people who let their hosting or domains run out and don’t realise it is a bit scary). We mean really check it.
When’s the last time you updated it? Is your “meet the team page” still correct and relevant, or is it full of leavers? Does your contact form submit correctly, and you get a prompt notification of the submission? When’s the last time you updated the testimonials you have featured on your website (don’t leave the same one up for 2 years… not a good look)? Do your links work, and go to the right places? Make sure to check your social media links! Lots of people will update their social media handles but forget to update the links they have on their own website.
If you have a blog, are you still happy with all of the articles you’ve got on there? This is especially relevant if you’ve been writing a blog for a while – check that some of your older ones aren’t tragically out of date, or in poor taste. Outdated blogs can then be content for this year – rewrite them and reshare them as new content!
This may seem like “small fry” whilst you’re spinning those 101 plates – but the plates will stop spinning for you eventually. And the last thing you want to realise, when this happens, is that your contact form hasn’t been working since sometime last year and you’ve missed out on goodness-knows-how-many leads.
There are many other helpful things you can do to improve your online presence, but we feel this is the number one top tip for small businesses for the new year.
Other online housekeeping that’s worth doing is:
- Delete any social media accounts on platforms you’re not active on
- Check your active social media pages are still up-to-date with correct information
- Check your Google listing is up-to-date and has the correct contact details
- Make sure you’ve responded to any and all reviews that have been left for you
It’s worth running a quick check of all of this two or three times a year. If you keep on top of it – do it little and often – it should only take you a few minutes to keep it all updated.
Complete disclaimer: we’re not ashamed to say we went and did all of this on our own website/social media pages before publishing this. We wanted to make sure we weren’t eating our words!