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Make 2012 the year when your website takes your business forward by implementing our simple 10 point plan.

Just what you wanted

Let’s not call this a New Year’s Resolution.  If your resolutions are like mine, they’ll be lucky to last until the end of January before they’re cast aside along with those horrible socks you got for Christmas.

No – this is a plan.  A different approach.  A new, pro-active version of you that is going to actually make a difference to your bottom line.

This post is mainly aimed at those businesses that have a website but don’t get much out of it.  It’s there because you need to have one, but it’s gathering dust in the corner by the fax machine and the Yellow Pages.

The 10 steps in this guide are all pretty easy to implement and don’t require a great deal of website knowledge.  Even if you only do some of them, you’ll see an improvement in your website’s performance and – hey, let’s dare to dream – you might even get some new business through it…

1. Make a plan and a timetable

First up, you need to plan this out.  Don’t be intimidated by the long list; break it down and do a bit at a time.  Book out a couple of hours in your diary each month for each step and spread it out over the year.  Allocate a task or step to each session so you can see what’s coming up.

What sort of impression does this give your potential customers?

2. Review and update

Go through your website and make some notes about what needs updating.  There’s bound to be some stuff that’s got out of date, and there’s nothing worse than having obviously out of date information on your website.  Things to look out for might include:

1. Pricing changes
2. New products to be added, old ones to be removed
3. Changes to descriptions of services
4. Updating case studies, portfolios or galleries
5. Staff changes
6. Opening hours
7. Contact details

3. Install Google Analytics

You want to know whether the time and effort you put in to improving your website is working, don’t you?  Adding Google Analytics to your site is free and it gives you a whole load of stats that will help you get a better picture of how your website is performing for you. For some initial advice on Google Analytics, read our blog post Understanding Google Analytics.

4. SEO Part 1- Research your keywords

Improve your search engine ranking and get more traffic to your website by optimisation.  The first thing to do is research the search terms that people use to find your products and services.  You can do this using free tools like Google Adwords Keyword Research Tool.  Doing this sort of research ensures you find the best keywords and not just the ones you might think are the best.

Choose a couple of keywords for each page on your site, or each product or service you want to promote.

5. SEO Part 2 – Rewrite your page Titles and Headings

Once you’ve chosen keywords for your website, rewrite your page Titles and Headings.  Search engines look for these when they’re deciding what your web page is about, so by including your keywords you’re increasing the chances of being found for the searches you want.  We’ve written a blog post about How to write good page Titles to help you out.  You can follow a similar format for your headings.

6. Plan 6 promotions

Show your promotions and special offers at the front of your website

Have a think about 6 promotions that you could run throughout the year and plan to change your website around them.  It could be as simple as choosing your six most profitable products and featuring these in turn, or you could run some seasonal promotions.  Here’s a few ideas to get you started:

1. New Year Sale
2. Valentines Day
3. Mothers Day
4. Easter
5. Summer Holidays
6. Back to School
7. Halloween
8. Christmas
9. Sports events – the Olympics, Six Nations Rugby, Wimbledon Tennis, Euro 2012 Football…

7. Update your home page

Make the most of your home page by pushing your promotions or your best products and services.  Imagine that your home page is like walking into a shop – push your featured items to the front where everyone can see them.  For more information and guidance on improving your home page, read our blog post Top tips for improving your home page.

Oh, and one last thing – make sure you continue to update your home page with your six promotions…

8. Add a Call to Action to every page

You can increase the number of visitors that become leads or enquiries by having a clear and strong Call to Action on every page of your website.  This usually takes the form of a link or a button that specifically tells them what they can do next to follow up their interest.  Make sure you have a Call to Action on every page.  For more information, read our blog post 3 ways good website design can improve your business.

9. SEO Part 3 – Start a blog

Our blog uses WordPress

The best way to be found on search engines is to have pages that are very specific to your selected keywords.  A blog is an excellent way to achieve this because you can write articles or “posts” about specific topics and each post becomes a new page on your website.  This article that you are reading is number 70 – that’s 70 individual pages about different topics around particular keywords that can all be found under different searches.

We’ve written a number of posts about blogging:

Forward-thinking retailer embraces social media
Blogging – why, when and how you should do it
5 business benefits of blogging – are you missing out?
Top tips for writing a blog

10. Use Twitter

Using Twitter for your business can be a great way of getting your message out to a whole new group of potential customers.  Signing up is quick and easy, and “tweeting” doesn’t need to take up too much time either.  Once you’ve got a group of followers, every tweet you write is viewed by them and if they think it’s interesting, they might in turn share it with the people that follow them.  For more information about using Twitter for your business, read our blog post How to use Twitter, for small local businesses.

How we can help

Blue Planet works with dozens of small local businesses, helping them get more from their website and online marketing.  If you’re serious about making your website work harder for you, call us on 01825 760909 or email mark@blueplanetinternet.co.uk for an initial chat.