The start of a New Year is the traditional time to make personal resolutions like losing weight, reading more, or improving relationships.  Interestingly enough, those same resolutions (and more) can apply to your website.

Just like personal and business resolutions, you should set some resolutions for your web presence.  Here are 5 important things we think you should be working on.

Regularly Update Your Website Content

Google (and other search engines) love fresh content and rewards site owners for it with higher search engine rankings.

For many businesses, however, once a website has been completed and launched, little or no additions or updating takes place.

Ideally, you should consistently update your site, even if it is just once a month. You can do this either by updating existing pages or adding blog posts, news and events information, videos and podcasts, FAQs or other content.

Ramp Up Your SEO

As search engines algorithms evolve so must your website. Take the time to periodically check on your SEO to see if any changes need to be made.

This can include looking at things like page loading-speed, mobile-friendliness, content quality, backlink quality, keyword usage and so forth.

It is also a good time to set some standards for yourself going forward – ensure that your images are named appropriately (no more image001), have the correct alt and meta tags and are sized for web display.

Update Your WordPress, Theme, and Plugins

Ignore these are your own peril! Aside from getting rid of bugs and adding new features and functionality, perhaps the chief reason so many updates are issued is to remove vulnerabilities that leave your website open to hacking and infection

Failure to act swiftly could potentially result in the theft of data, the removal of your website by your hosting company and damage to your businesses reputation.

Big businesses are not the only targets so schedule time each week to check for and deal with those website updates!

Secure & Monitor Your Website

In addition to updating software, you should make it a resolution in 2020 to ensure your website remains as secure as possible.

There are many things you can do to make your site security more robust. Enforce strong passwords and avoid easily guessed usernames. Install an SSL certificate. Ensure your website is monitored for intrusion and malware. Host your website with a reputable hosting company and backup regularly AND store your backups elsewhere than on your website.

Track & Analyze Your Website’s Performance

Website traffic monitoring is vital to the success of any website.

Tools like Google Analytics let you see how your website is performing, where traffic is coming from, and how customers interact with your content. You can determine which pages or blog post have more traffic and “time on page”.

There are additional analytics tools you (or your web team) should be using, but Google Analytics is a good place to start

Conclusion

The beginning of the year is a good time to make a fresh start and focus on things are going to help your business grow (and avoid trouble). Watch for our next installment of Website New Year Resolutions.