Spring Clean Your Website
Spring has arrived in Boston. Finally!! The Red Sox home opener was today (we won!) and it was actually warm enough to open the windows and let some fresh air in after a long, snowy winter.
Most people “spring clean” this time of year – washing windows, scrubbing floors, dusting surfaces, etc. But your home isn’t the only thing that needs to be spruced up. It’s also a good time to spring clean your website. Has it been months since you added a new blog post? Guilty! Is your event calendar still promoting New Year’s Eve? If so, it’s time to spring clean your website! Here are few tips on what to update:
Freshen up your content
The first place to start with your website spring cleaning is the content. Give the content a quick read through and make sure it’s up to date. If you’ve changed hours or locations, etc. make sure that those changes are reflected in your site’s content. Are you offering a new service? Promote it up front by rewriting the content on your homepage. We all know by now that Google puts a higher premium on websites that regularly post new content.
This is also a good time to check and make sure your menus reflect the most current offerings and prices. Many restaurants are guilty of having prices on their website that are several years old. You don’t want to get caught having to honor prices that are well below market just because you did not think to update your website. And, while you’re at it update your events calendar too. Calendars drive customers to your business so don’t miss the chance to promote an upcoming event.
Check for broken links
Spring cleaning is a good time to check your site for broken links. Remove any links that link to content that is no longer there and fix links that are dead. Broken links will hurt your Google ranking, but they will also frustrate visitors to your site.
Resize photos
Photos should be 200 KB or less. If it’s been a while since you cleaned up your website and it’s loading slowly, then check the size of your photos. Reducing the size is an easy fix. We like this resizer site for reducing the size of photos. If you have a lot of photos on your blog and they are too”heavy,” simply reducing their size can have an impact on your website’s overall load time.
If you start to spring clean your website and realize it’s loading too slowly and the task seems too daunting, give us a call! If you have a website that is weighed down by heavy photos, old content and broken links, sometimes starting from scratch makes the best sense. We can design a fresh new website for you for spring!