At the dawn of the internet websites were made without much consideration as to how they would need to be updated or changed in the future. To keep websites pertinent to the modern day, acquiring new links, keeping visitors satisfied and maintaining if not gaining search engine traffic, website owners need an on-going maintenance plan. As with any maintenance plan, incremental improvements made regularly are better than large radical changes made infrequently.
Website Content Auditing
If you only do one thing from this check-list, performing a content audit on a regular basis should be it. Check for non-relevant content, completely remove dead or useless pages and/or content. There isn't any value in keeping pages or content that do not receive any traffic from search engines.
Improve Internal Linking
It is extremely important to use internal linking effectively. Don't just stuff links into your footer but link relevant pages wisely. It is a good idea to have contextual internal linking within your main body text to other areas within your site structure.
Go back and re-visit old(er) pages as there may be a new internal link opportunity with a new content. Likewise, links to older content may help as long as the content is still relevant - reviving/generating new traffic to old pages does need to be done with some scrutiny as sometimes it may be more beneficial to just kill off old pages with little value and no traffic.
URL Structure
If you have a relatively small site and manually build pages as and when necessary then tailor-making your URL and folder structure is easier and there really is no excuse for badly built structure. However, if you are using a Content Management System of any flavour, your URL structure is largely defined by how configurable and flexible your selected CMS is. Shorter URL's are better than longer ones, directories and folders may be nice from an organisational point of view but not all that necessary for search engines (although a well-structured hierarchy does have its benefits if used correctly).
Try to avoid using dates or number sequences (that look like dates) whenever possible. Avoid parameters if at all possible, but if they must be used, make sure that they are set up and defined within your websites webmaster tools so they are treated in the right manner and don't come up as duplicate content. Depending on just how your website is structured, using the rel="canonical" tag can help solve some issues but it is best to get it right and not use band-aid solutions for bad URL structure.
Mobile Friendly Websites
Stay away from sub-domains for mobile sites! Use just one URL, make sure pages and their content are served using appropriate style sheets via user agent detection, do not use parameters or mobile sub-domains - you have been warned.
Domain Renewing and Auditing
Most people who manage domains and who have been for a while, most likely has a sizeable domain name portfolio. While £10 per domain may not sound like a lot of money, every hundred domains registered will set you or your company back £1000 a year!
If a domain doesn't an exact match, high keyword value, isn't generating any revenue and you (realistically) have no intention of developing them within the next 3 or so years, don’t renew them and put your money to better use. Of course, this doesn't apply to vanity domains or misspellings you may be holding for trademark or branding purposes.
Evaluate Your Satellite Site Strategy
Micro and satellite websites are an often abused SEO tactic and although they do have short to medium term benefits, most will need to be killed off at some point. If a micro-site is not bringing in targeted traffic or generating any revenue (whether directly or indirectly) it's time to shut shop and move on.
It is possible that you have microsites covering two focus areas, however, you need to ask yourself if it is big enough to require more than one website, can you dedicate the time to running multiple micro or satellite sites? If you find that it is costing you more in time or money than it is generating in revenue, then that’s usually a good sign that it’s time to pull the plug.
Speed-Up Your Website
If you have been looking at your webmaster dashboard (and if you're not, you definitely should be) you will have noticed the 'page speed' section which apart from telling you how long it takes to download your website, also compares your site to other similar websites. Search engines are giving increasing importance to site speed as it should.
How many times have you had a bad 'web experience' due to a site taking too long to load? Look into making your pages and website as a whole as fast as possible. The days of flash are gone, and if you are using Ajax or other scripting technologies, be sure you are using them smartly. Eventually shifting to HTML 5 should make its way onto your priority list.
So What Should You Take Away from this Rant?
- Perform a regular content audit to ensure your website is kept lean and mean
- Maximize your inbound link equity with smart internal linking
- Look at your URL structure keep it clean and make sure it’s not creating problems
- Make Your website as mobile friendly as possible, don’t cut corners as it will only harm your web visibility
- Re-evaluate your microsite strategy, use it where it makes sense, kill it where it doesn’t
- Streamline your domain portfolio
- Increase your page speed, kill flash use Ajax where necessary and look to shift to HTML 5
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About the Author
Tom has been in the Digital Marketing industry for over 15 years. He has been a consultant for some major brands such as Tesco, Audi, TUI, First Choice & Barclays. Tom also hosts workshops and seminars on Digital Marketing.