Your website is one of the most important tools for growing your business. But it can be intimidating to manage if you’re not very technically inclined. Don’t let that scare you. You don’t have to be a tech wizard to manage your site and get it to its fullest potential.
Here is a simple checklist to help assure your website is doing its job.
Good Hosting
Use a reliable yet affordable hosting service when starting out. HostGator and Bluehost are both great hosting services and affordable.
Keywords for SEO
Use the free Yoast plugin (you can download it under “plugin’s” in your WP dashboard).
Once you have it installed, go to “Settings” in your dashboard, select Yoast and enter a title, description for your business and the top keywords for your business. An example of a keyword would be “designer diaper bags”, or “virtual assistance help”, or “Thornton veterinary hospitals”.
Then, on each page and post, you’ll want to add a title, description and keywords specific to that page or post. There will be a place to do this underneath where you write the content on the New Post or Page.
Social Sharing Buttons
You want your content and images to be easily shareable! Use a free, simple to put social media buttons next to your content. Also be sure and use a free plugin to make sharing images on Pinterest easy for your readers.
Limit Plugins
While plugins are great and add functionality to your WordPress blog, you don’t want to install too many plugins and you definitely want to deactivate any that you aren’t using. Too many plugins can slow down the speed of your site.
Google Analytics
Go to www.google.com/analytics, create an account, and then plug the code into your website. Depending on your theme, where you place the code will vary. Most themes have a place in “theme settings” for you to put your GA code.
Google Analytics will help you keep track of your traffic, the source of your traffic and which pages on your site are most visited. This is important info to track!
Opt-in Box for List Building
Make sure you are collecting email addresses! Even if you are selling a product and not trying to do regular email blasts, you should be collecting the email addresses from everyone who visits your site. Offer something useful and free to encourage sign-ups.
Use a service like Aweber, Mailchimp, MailerLite or ConvertKit to do this. Most of these services have a plugin that will help you place the opt-in box on your site.
Place opt-in boxes in these key places on your site:
- Homepage –above the fold (so visitors don’t have to scroll down to see it)
- Top of side-bar or in header
- Bottom of every blog post
- Bottom of About page
Another great strategy for growing an email list is to offer lead magnets that are specific to each blog post.
You Can Do It!
Managing your blog can feel overwhelming. It can feel like there are a million “impossible” things to do. Break down each action item into a daily or weekly “to-do” and tackle each item one at a time.
