Christmas has passed and it’s now time to look forward to the New Year! If you own a small business with an online presence, here are 5 questions to consider for the year 2015.
1. Do you need to update your website?
There have been a number of website trends that have become popular over the last few years. Full-width background images/videos, parallax scrolling, and flat design seem to be the norm nowadays. Take a good look at your website. If it looks and feels dated (in a bad way), you may need a website redesign.
Also, read your content. Does the content still represent your business, and is the information (such as business hours and links) still accurate? If you have pricing on your website, make sure that it’s up-to-date as well.
How is your website’s SEO? Do all of your website pages have unique content, with a substantial amount of text? If you have several short pages that revolve around the same concept, think about consolidating them into one page to improve your SEO.
Check your links as well. Broken links aren’t just bad for SEO, it’s unfriendly to your users as well. If your site has many broken links, it will appear to your users as though your entire website is broken and outdated.
2. Is your website mobile-friendly?
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- Current mobile view of outerbankstrisports.com
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- Mobile responsive view
A few years ago, having a mobile-friendly website wasn’t as important as it is today. Now it seems like everyone has their hands on a smartphone or tablet, so a responsive website or a mobile-optimized website is a must in 2015.
3. Are your social media accounts up to date?
Check your social media accounts to make sure the information in your profile(s) is correct. Make sure you have links going to your website and your other social media channels. Look at the design customizations of your social media pages—do they need to be updated with something fresh?
4. What are your business goals for 2015? How can your online presence help?
If you want to start selling your products online, adding e-commerce to your website is an obvious solution. If you want to start targeting a new demographic or improve your online marketing, having specialized landing pages and improved content for your customers would benefit your business.
5. Do you need to expand your online presence?
If you’re a small business, you might not be on every social media platform that can benefit you. Some options that you can consider are Google My Business and Yelp. Certain small businesses can also benefit from using Instagram or Pinterest.
