New Year’s Resolutions That Can Improve Your Website

By Ben Allen, Guest Contributor
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Every year, people around the world gather to celebrate a new year, and 2018 is no different. For many, a new year represents a new chance to improve themselves through resolutions. They look back at the previous year, identify things they didn’t like, and resolve to change. They find the flaws in themselves and then put in the work to fix them.

Here are some great resolutions for improving your website.

The same should be done for your website. There are flaws that are negatively impacting your website’s performance, and now is a great time to fix them. Maybe it’s an old flaw you never got around to fixing, or it could be an ongoing strategy you are still doing that needs to be changed. Here are some great resolutions for improving your website:

Fixing the Little Mistakes
It’s time to stop procrastinating and get your hands dirty. It’s time to do a deep dive on your website and fix all of the little mistakes that have been piling up.

Little mistakes can be anything from grammatical errors, incorrect meta tags, broken links, or just little things that needs to be updated. It’s the mistakes that you don’t think are worth your time fixing right now, but you keep putting off until the next time you log in to the back end of your site.

No longer will these mistakes find a place on your site, both now and in the future. Spend a day and just go to town, fixing all of these little errors that have been plaguing your site. Then, make a plan to either prevent errors from making it to the live version of the site or to regularly purge them.

Make Better Content
One of the most common SEO myths is that more content is better for search results; if you have been following that trend, it’s time to stop. If you have created a process that churns out tons of content, but you sacrifice quality for quantity, it’s time to stop. Maybe your problem is that you don’t put out content often enough and you need to ramp it up.

A great resolution is to improve the content you produce. No matter what style of content you make, there are ways you can improve. Identify some of the shortcomings in your content, either by being very self-critical or by asking somebody else to look it over. This could include lengthening or shortening your content, doing more research, coming up with more creative ideas, and improving the production value.

When it comes to content, Google is wanting more authoritative and professionally produced content. Do what you need to do to get your content to an excellent quality. Not only will you do better with Google, but you might notice that you’ll start making stuff people actually want to read and view.

Do That Redesign You’ve Been Putting Off
Maybe your website has been around for over a decade, or maybe you just don’t like the template you bought a few years back. Maybe you feel like it might be time but are unsure.  

A good way to start is to find inspiration from other sites on the web that look great and have a similar target market to yours. As you pick out sites, identify trends that stick out to you, and elements you want to incorporate in your site.

Then, delve into redoing your website. Either create a plan on doing it yourself or hire a designer to do it for you. Incorporate those elements you desire and give your website the facelift it needs.

Spend More Time in Your Analytics
A common misstep many website owners make is not spending enough time looking over all of their analytics. They might spend a few minutes looking at the general traffic, but delving deep into the data is where you can get the real insights.

Resolving to spend more time in your website’s data can only improve your site further. You’ll identify things that aren’t working with your visitors, quickly notice when something has gone wrong, and see trends in what does work. Then, you can take that information and further improve on your website. If you haven’t spent much time with this data, it’s time to learn.

Whether you spend a few minutes a day, or a few hours every week, regularly investigating your analytics is a great way to grow your website.

As you plan out and look to the future of the year, resolutions for your website can be a great way to improve. It will only work, though, if you set regular goals and follow up with yourself. That means setting up reminders, pushing yourself to improve, and staying dedicated. Nothing is worse than getting halfway through a website redesign only to abandon it, or falling back to old habits. Stick to a plan and see it through.
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