These days, it’s not enough to just have a website.
Get the most out of your investment.
You have to use it. This means that once you’ve labored over choosing the right domain name, designing the perfect graphics and pulling your teeth out to write intro, about us and services pages, you are far from done. Once you launch a website, it’s like bringing a new life into the world. It must be given plenty of care and attention in order for it to do its job well. Like any worthwhile investment, you gotta keep an eye on it.
An abandoned website is a forgotten investment.
If your website hasn’t been updated or promoted in the last two months then it’s abandoned!
Why does this matter? Well, for starts, search engines like Google and Yahoo look down on abandoned websites. They can tell when a website has been updated and will give you more “points” for it. They can also tell when your website is being promoted through other websites or social media like Facebook and YouTube, for which they will give you even more “points” for. The more points you get, the higher up your website will appear in search engine searches for words related to your business, which greatly increases your visibility. More visibility is a good thing!
Secondly, if you’re not regularly promoting your business and its website on social networks then you are missing out on a great new opportunity to increase your visibility. Depending on the network, you can post videos or photos of your work, promote services through specials, take polls, create networks of people (read: potential customers)… and lead people to visit your website’s portfolio or online store.
Basically, if you’re not giving your website attention, then you’re losing out on potential customers and profits. A lot of Alaskan small businesses could greatly benefit simply by putting a few hours a month into reviving and utilizing their nicely designed websites!
With this in mind, we’ve devised a simple four-step vision of the life of a healthy, profitable website:
1. Development
The gestation phase. Planning, design, construction and launch.
2. Promotion
Real-life and virtual marketing. Social networking. Signing up with online directories, like Alaska’s own BuyAlaska.com.
3. Upkeep
Add new content (text, photos, videos, testamonials, etc). Promote new content.
4. Redesign
Incorporate new ideas and technologies to keep your website fresh!
We hope this article has helped redefine your ideas of what a website is. Stay tuned in the following weeks as we explore the life span of a website in more detail. Thanks for reading!
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