Your digital storefront needs preventive maintenance too! 

Whether it’s a busy or slow season, this is the time of year to analyze your website’s performance. Just like the cars that pull into your shop every day, it may need some preventive maintenance.

How easily can your customers interact with you on the internet? Find out for yourself by taking a customer journey through the entire process, on your desktop and your mobile. This is your digital storefront, and if you’re going to put in the time and money to have a website, you need to know how well it’s working. Don’t get into the “set it and leave it” mentality. 

Your first step is to take that consumer journey yourself. You’ve got a checklist for your customers’ cars, make one for your website. See if all the services you’re offering are online and update specials or discounts. Consumers want deals, especially in these times of high inflation. It’s how you can set yourself apart from the competition. 

It’s not only consumers that are scanning your website, the search engines are busy tracking it, as well as Google My Business. They’ll pick up those all-important keywords, and rank you accordingly. Your website should not be a static entity, because it’s providing consumers with an experience of your business before they physically come in to see you. And you want to put your best foot forward.

If you’re doing mail pieces or email blasts, or any social media campaigns, the goal is to drive customers to your website. It’s a much bigger platform than you may think.

How long does it take to load? Google has a free and simple speed test; all you have to do is google “website speed test,” and input your URL. This free platform will do a speed analysis and recommendations that you can give to your web developer.

If you have any kind of pamphlets that have to be printed off or forms, you probably don’t need them. People will just print them out and forget about them. Your website should be interactive. 

You don’t want to start the New Year off with a bad website which makes for a bad consumer experience. If your website isn’t performing well, people will abandon it and look somewhere else, give you bad online reviews or even tell you when they see you.

You should be checking for accurate information about what services you provide, how to book an appointment online, how they can contact you if they can’t find what they’re looking for online, and updated information about staff. Everything a customer thinks they need should be easily accessible on your website. 

There’s no special technique and it’s not as overwhelming as you think. This is a simple task of getting on your website and spending some time on it. Walk through every page and see what your physical experience is, reading the content. You can even have your desktop and phone set up at the same time, going through the same steps at the exact same time. Take notes, and then run a speed test.

Remember that there are consultants and agencies that will do a free analysis if you’re looking to redesign your website. There are avenues you can take, and not have to spend a lot of money, just make some tweaks. Once you put the investment into a website, the upkeep or small changes are very minimal cost, depending on your expertise and your vision.