Website Aftercare: How to look after your brand new website

You’ve just made your new website live. You’re super proud of it and can’t wait to show it off to the world, but how can you get even more people to see it?

It’s easy to think that now you have a website, that’s it, there’s nothing more to do. When in fact, that's not the case. As I always say, just because you have a website doesn't mean people will know it’s there unless you promote it.

I’ve created this article?to help you understand the things you can do to keep increasing your presence online, and in turn, make your website into a profitable marketing platform that can help you gain clients, which was the whole reason you invested in a new website, right? And surely a website that does the work for you is your ultimate goal. So let’s go through these points to see where you can improve your visitor and conversion rate via your website. If you need any assistance with these points,?get in touch with me here, I'd be happy to help and advise.

Here are my tips:

1. SET UP GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE

You’ve got your website set up, so why isn't it appearing in the search results? Well, it could be because Google hasn't indexed your web pages yet, so it doesn’t actually know your content exists. And don't be fooled…just because your website is showing in your Google search result pages (SERPs) it doesn't mean it’s showing for everyone else. Google shows content that is relevant to you, and really you need Google to show your content to someone who doesn’t know about you but could be interested in what you do. Once you have your website set up, you should submit a sitemap to Google and for any new pages you create, you should also ‘Request Indexing’ on those pages. If you leave Google to do it naturally you could be waiting months. And I mean months. Think of all the websites out there that exist. That’s a lot for Google to cover without it being brought to Google's attention that your beautiful new website exists.

2. SET UP GOOGLE ANALYTICS

This can help you measure traffic to your website, so you can understand where in the world your content is being found. GA4 can also tell you things like how long visitors stay on your website, and where they drop off. You can set goals to try to increase visitors and conversions through your website, and you can see over time how this has progressed. It's a great tool for measuring your website’s success.

3. KEEP GOOGLE BUSINESS PROFILE UPDATED

One way to help Google still know you exist is to keep your Google Business Profile up-to-date. GBP is a free tool that really helps with local searches. When you type into Google ‘hairdressers’ for example, it knows your approximate location and will show you maps and listings of local relevant hairdressers near you. This is where you can find more information about businesses, reviews, directions and even, yep you guessed it, a link to your website to find out more about you. It just makes sense to keep this updated.

4. KEEP ASKING FOR GOOGLE REVIEWS

Following on from the point above make sure you ask your clients for reviews, especially via Google. This will be displayed on your Google Business Profile and helps Google to understand that you do a good job in your industry. If you have lots of five-star reviews compared to a similar business that has no reviews because their profile hasn’t been kept up-to-date, who do you think Google will want to recommend more? And who do you think visitors will likely click on, and therefore likely buy from?

5. KEEP YOUR CONTENT UPDATED

Make sure you regularly review your website content to make sure it’s accurate. Do prices correlate with other places your prices may be, for example, on your social media posts? Are you showcasing all of the services you offer?

6. ADD REGULAR RELEVANT BLOG POSTS

Blog posts are a great way to keep your website current. If you can link your content with trending content, that’s even better. People are generally searching trending content more often, so if something is trending in your industry, why not put your twopence in and make it a blog post for your website?

7. REPURPOSE YOUR CONTENT

Every time you do a social media post think about if it’s relevant to repurpose it into other forms of content. This could be a blog post for your website, a LinkedIn newsletter, or a Google Business Profile post (yep, GBP is also a type of social media platform too). That means you converted one piece of copy into four pieces of copy that are relevant to your audience. Win!

8. USE YOUR WEBSITE FOR REFERENCE

Direct people to your website in conversation or email. If you’re having a meeting with a prospective client, or sending an email to them with more information about your services, include a direct link to relevant pages of your website. That way you’re letting them know exactly how you can help them, providing your content is up-to-date (see point 5). You're allowing your prospective client to go away and think about if choosing to work with you is the right choice for them. And BAM! You’ve also got another visitor to your website, which will show Google that a relevant prospective client is interested in your content.

But, what to do if your website traffic and enquiries don't improve??Well, you need to go back a few steps.

1. Have you done the points above regularly, consistently and accurately?
2. Take another look at your website copy – is your website messaging confusing, complicated or just not targeting your ideal client?
3. Is it time to look at investing a bit more in your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)? – you should be ranking for specific keywords that your ideal audience searches for. It’s worth making sure your pages are optimised for these keywords.

Lastly, I want you to remember, IT TAKES TIME. And there’s no better time to start than now.

Sure, you don’t need a website to start a business, but the sooner you set one up, the sooner Google is going to know about it. If you’re confident you know your ideal client and your website speaks to that audience, there’s no reason why your website won’t start converting your ideal clients if you’ve set it up correctly – and if you’ve used me to design your website, it sure will be :)

If you need any assistance with these points,?get in touch with me here, I'd be happy to help and advise.

Find out about my?Divi web design service here,?my?Squarespace web design service here?or simply?contact me here.