A new year means new opportunities for your business, as well as 12 months of hard work aimed at reaching your goals. With everything you have to do in 2007, don’t forget about your company’s website and the maintenance it needs to help you be more successful. However, with that said, it doesn’t mean that you need to completely redo your website because a few key activities will make the greatest impact.

If you commit to doing only the following priorities, you’ll see better search engine placement, increased site visits and more leads generated through your site.

1. Add Customer Testimonials. The most powerful marketing tool for your company is the word of your customers. If you’ve been in business for even one year, you should have at least a handful of customers who have something positive to say about the work you performed on their behalf. This creates tremendous opportunity for your sales and marketing efforts, and adds credibility and value to your website.

Customer testimonials can be one-sentence quotes, or one-page case studies that explain the customer’s challenge and how you solved it. A combination of both is the most effective because you can use them in different ways on your site (and in your marketing and sales materials as well). In either format, customer testimonials allow your customers to become your sales force. They tell prospects why your company can be trusted, is an expert at what you do and why you should be hired.

2. Update Company Information. Your website is the first place new prospects look for information about your company. Make sure that the information they find is current, accurate and reflects the best of your company. At least once a year you should revise and post (or create these documents if you don’t have them):
a. Company background document;
b. Executive biographies;
c. Company fact sheet;
d. Product or Service fact sheets;
e. Current news releases; and
f. Company contact information, if any changes have occurred.

3. Add Articles. A key to an effective website, and getting the attention of both your visitors and search engines, is content. By having a lot of information on your site, you position your company as an expert resource, give visitors more reasons to get to know you and add credibility as a viable company. Plus, the content you add to your site increases your visibility with search engines, which will help raise your ranking on searches.
The best type of articles are educational in nature but are directly related to your business and offerings. Articles that discuss trends, industry issues and new innovations are always good topics. Also, “how-to” articles are effective ways of providing information while communicating how you can help customers. The most important thing is to make sure that the articles are well-written and free of any typographical or grammatical errors.

4. Check the Website Flow. The basic functionality of your site is as important as the look, which is why it is critical that your site works as expected. This is not only important for the experience of site visitors but also for search engines indexing your site.
Start by making sure that all of the links shown are live, free of error messages and go to the appropriate pages. Also, you’ll want to make sure that there is content on every page and visitors aren’t met with “page under construction” when they click to a new page. If you find any errors, prioritize to get them corrected immediately. Although you could spend an entire year doing nothing but reorganizing the flow/structure of your site, these are the basics that will make your site appear complete and finished.

5. Make Sure Your Site is Indexed. If you’ve never optimized your site with search engines, you want to start by making sure that you’re at least on their radar screen. With thousands of new websites going online every week, search engines are challenged with knowing every URL and what company it belongs to.
Go to google.com, msn.com and yahoo.com and enter your company’s name in the search bar. If your site doesn’t appear in the search results, it won’t appear for a prospect or customer looking specifically for your company and you’ll need to submit your site to the search engines for recognition. This is the very least search engine optimization you can do, and the most important.

Your website speaks volumes about your brand, value to customers and level of professionalism. Making sure that visitors can find your site when searching for your company, it works correctly, is complete and has current information are critical to ensuring your overall marketing, communications and sales goals. If you want your website to work as hard as you do, take care of it this year.

If you’re looking for an outside partner to improve your company’s website content and search engine optimization, click here.