5 Ways To Spring Clean Your Digital Presence
Sometimes when it comes to website or social media management, there’s a tendency to “set it and forget it,” but a digital presence isn’t something to walk away from and expect to work by itself. And there’s no better time than now to do some spring cleaning to get the digital side of things in tip-top shape.
1. Get Started: A company’s digital footprint extends beyond its website and social media. Critical for local SEO are directory listings found on Apple Maps, Yelp, Bing, etc. Many of these sites pull information from elsewhere on the internet, so it’s likely there are outdated or unclaimed company profiles. It’s imperative listings are accurate and up to date in as many directories as possible. Tools like Semrush, Moz Local or BrightLocal search for and update information across dozens of the most-viewed directories automatically.
2. Perform Website Maintenance: Routine and effective local SEO efforts, such as online listing management, can help increase a company’s visibility and its website traffic, so maintaining a fast, error-free and optimized site is crucial. Set aside a few hours this spring to verify your business’s contact information and hours of operation, fix broken links, test the site speed, fillable forms and checkout process (if applicable) and delete any unnecessary plug-ins or themes.
3. Improve Security: Carve out time to review who has access to the back end of your website and any social accounts. Users shouldn’t have more access than what is needed to perform their job duties. While you’re at it, update passwords. Be sure it’s unique and isn’t used for other online accounts. It’s also recommended to change the default “admin” name in your content management system (like WordPress) to something more secure. Leaving it as is only makes hackers’ jobs easier.
4. Review Analytics: Do some web pages have abnormally high bounce rates? Identify something about the design or copy that’s keeping people from sticking around. Do mobile users convert at much lower rates than desktop users? Maybe it’s necessary to update buttons or forms to be more mobile-friendly.
5. Clean Lists: Email addresses are without a doubt considered the holy grail of first-party data. If your email bounce rate is up and/or the open and click-through rates are down, it’s time to scrub the email list. Start by checking for contacts on multiple active lists and the last-sent date on any lists and delete those that are too old.
For more details — and a bonus sixth way — on how to “spring clean” your digital presence, look for Ashley’s Best Practices article in the just-published April issue of Shooting Industry.
