By staying up to date on your business website you are more likely to keep a positive relationship with your customers, while also making sure your website is up to date and professional! Keeping your website up to date is an important step in maintaining a positive customer relationship.
Why Stay Up To Date?
Staying up to date with any website is important, but it is just as if not more vital for small business websites out there. There are thousands of small businesses striving out to accomplish some of the same things your business is trying to do. This also means that any mistake no matter how small can be a huge one.
Making sure that your website has everything it needs to survive is the difference between more or less business and revenue. In this article, we go through the simple yet effective ways to always present a professional website to those visiting your WordPress website!
Valid Information
This may seem obvious at first, but it’s a huge mistake when not taken seriously. There is nothing more irritating than when you list incorrect store hours, if you make a change to your store availability, remember to make the change to your website. Chances are if a customer shows up and you have already closed shop, they won’t be back to try again.
Another example of this is especially relevant when it comes to restaurants who post their menus on their website. If you make a menu change of any kind it’s a good idea to correct the change, and if there are new items added, to advertise it!
The updating of relevant information obviously goes for other important listed items such as telephone numbers, addresses, etc. These type of changes can also be a great way to subtly market new changes for your in location or eCommerce based businesses! For example, if you have recently begun to take credit cards when before you had not, that is something great to advertise and opens up your business to new clients.
Are you running a promotion right now? Let everyone know about it! Your first line of advertising is your website! If you are already paying for it, take full advantage of all it has to offer! There are tons of great hosting sites like Managed WordPress that help you promote your site.
Even simply changing the layout occasionally, and shifting what is displayed on the home page can be a great idea to catch returning customers interests when they see there is something new!
Security Updates
The importance of updates cannot be stressed enough, always follow updates for your WordPress site! Not updating is the easiest way to invite in intruders trying to take over your site, and that is the last thing you want to happen to you or your customers.
By updating and occasionally changing your passwords you are helping to ensure that your website stays secure! Keep in mind that on rare occasions a WordPress theme or plugin could be the cause of a security risk on site, so if for whatever reason you are unsure about a theme or plugin do the safe thing and do not use it! Always check the reviews.
Don’t let this make you feel like you can’t add plugins to your site, there are hundreds of fantastic free and premium plugins out there to help boost your web pages. If you are worried, a good rule of thumb is to choose themes and plugins that are rated very popularly and are often used.
If there were security issues with these add ons then it wouldn’t be so highly used! Many hosting services and even some plugins such as Managed WordPress also help with security!
Adding Content
SEO (search engine optimization) as you know, is an important addition to any website, especially for a small business. If you are correctly using and utilizing SEO with proper hosting, you will have no trouble being found. There is a bit of upkeep with SEO making it a good idea to add to your website from time to time.
A few fantastic ways to maintain and adding content to your web pages without needless filler is to add more FAQ questions and answers. You can also continue to add blogs to your site which will aid in adding SEO and more information to your website. There are plenty of topics about your products or services you can further elaborate on as blog material!
Always make sure to reply to customer contacts as well to maintain a good customer service relationship; you can sometimes use these to add to your FAQ page or even testimonials on your website!
Managing Comments
If you have a website that handles comments, forums, reviews, etc, it’s always a good idea to stay on top of what people are saying. This is always a great idea when dealing with upset customers or people who are posting inappropriate content.
If you are able and have a review or forum system of some kind, it’s generally a good idea to meet with customers about their dissatisfaction to try and fix relations. Removing unrelated content before it is seen by many customers is also an important step to remaining professional.
Following these simple updates is important for showcasing a professional website without irritating customers!