You’ve just launched your new business website. Congratulations! But don’t relax just yet – the real work is just beginning. Keeping your website optimization on an ongoing basis is crucial for success. Let’s look at why you need to keep optimizing and some key areas to focus on.
Your website is never “done”
You may be tempted to think you can just launch your site and then check back in a year or so. Resist that urge! Your website needs constant care and feeding. Search engines like Google are always evolving. What worked to get you ranked highly last month might not work next month. You need to continually refine on-page elements as well as build new backlinks. Consider your website a living, breathing entity that needs regular optimization check-ups.
Your competition isn’t standing still
While you’re resting on your laurels, your competitors are working hard to surpass you. They are adding content, building links, enhancing site speed, improving UI, and testing new marketing tactics. If you remain stagnant, they will eventually overtake you. To stay ahead, you must relentlessly optimize and enhance your site. There’s always something that can work better – you just need to find and fix it.
Google loves up-to-date websites
Google wants to provide searchers with the most useful, up-to-date content possible. That means they favor websites that are actively maintained and refreshed. By continually optimizing your pages with new content and features, you make your site seem more relevant in Google’s eyes. This can lead to better ranking results. Don’t let your site go stale!
Visitors need a smooth experience
When people visit your site from search engines, social media, or other referrals, you want them to have the best experience possible. That means fast load speeds, an intuitive UI, simple navigation, and compelling content. If site visitors hit roadblocks, they will quickly click away and likely not return. Optimization helps minimize friction points and removes barriers to engagement.
Good isn’t good enough
Getting website visitors is tough enough. Converting them into leads and customers is even harder. Your website might seem perfectly fine as is. But “fine” isn’t good enough anymore. You need to WOW visitors and compel them to take action. Optimization is how you go from good to great. Constantly testing and refining page layouts, product displays, and calls-to-action is necessary to boost conversions.
Mobile usage keeps climbing
Mobile isn’t just the future – it’s the fast-approaching present. The majority of web traffic now comes from smartphones and tablets. If your site isn’t fully mobile-friendly, you are likely hemorrhaging potential visits and sales. Ensuring speedy mobile load speeds, easy tap targets, and a seamless cross-device experience requires continual optimization checks.
Optimizing is a smart investment
You may worry that continuous optimization takes too much expensive development work. But savvy site owners realize optimization provides massive ROI and is well worth the investment. Good optimizations like improved site speed can increase conversions over 20%. And activities like link-building, while time-consuming, are essentially free. When you factor in the tremendous upside of higher rankings, traffic, and sales, optimization starts looking like the smartest place to allocate budget and resources. View optimization spending as you would any high-yield investment.
New technologies keep emerging
The internet technology landscape evolves at a dizzying pace. New coding languages, platforms, devices, and networks constantly emerge. The latest innovations can help you engage and convert more visitors – but only if you optimize to support them. Augmented reality, 3D imaging, voice search, 5G – who knows what’s next? Regularly optimizing for new tech is key.
Don’t break things that work
As you optimize, be careful not to “break” aspects that are already working well. Only make one significant change at a time, so you can accurately measure the impact. If particular pages or campaigns are converting nicely, don’t mess with success too much. Optimization is about evolution, not revolution. Take a crawl-walk-run approach instead of chasing every shiny new tactic.
Keeping your website optimized with the latest best practices takes effort but delivers huge rewards. Fall behind, and you do so at your own peril. Follow these optimization fundamentals, and you’ll enhance your site’s visibility, value, and viability over the long haul.