Some people have mixed opinions on New Year’s Resolutions. It’s understandable why there’s some skepticism around the subject matter. New Year’s Resolutions often revolve around life-altering goals like quitting smoking, getting in peak shape, finding a dream job, writing a novel, learning an instrument, etc.
But of the 40% or so of adults that set resolutions, only 6% make it through the entire year and continue into the next.
Does that mean you shouldn’t bother even trying? Of course not.
Personally, I think the start of the year is the perfect time to sit back, reflect on the various aspects of life and work, and set goals accordingly. The key is to set tangible, achievable goals. From there, you can set out the steps needed to reach those goals.`
As with all things, it’s a process. But by setting goals and milestones and staying consistent, you’ll be surprised by what you can accomplish.
The question is…
What Are You Trying to Accomplish?
If you run a business or you’re launching a brand in 2024, it’s important to have an effective website with strong messaging that helps grow your digital reach and bring in new leads and followers. But saying “I want my website to be better this year” isn’t a clear, tangible goal. It’s an outcome.
In order to achieve that outcome, you need to take action. We’ve put together a few simple, but effective actions you can take this year that will result in a better website for your brand.
Track Your Analytics
There’s a good chance you’re already doing this, but we want to make sure to cover it. It’s surprising how many professional websites I’ve personally encountered that don’t even track their basic traffic.
Connecting a website to Google Analytics is free, easy, and something that every website should do. With Google Analytics, you can see how many people are coming to your website, how they’re getting there, how long they’re staying, what they’re looking at, and much more.
This is invaluable information that should guide you on any and all future work you do on your website. It also helps you see how effective other initiatives like social media and email marketing are at driving traffic to your website.
Click here to learn how you can set up a Google Analytics account and connect it to your website.
For those who already have general Analytics set up on their website, I recommend taking things further by creating some events and tracking conversions. You can learn more about that here.
Connect to Google Search Console
While we’re connecting your website to Google services, let’s make sure it’s connected to Google Search Console as well. This is an often-overlooked tool that can be very helpful in improving your rankings and appearance in relevant search results. It’s also completely free.
To start, you simply need to go here, sign into a Google account, and connect your website to your profile.
From there, I’d recommend manually adding your website’s sitemap.
How to find your sitemap will depend on how your website is built and configured, but ultimately, you’re looking for a URL like this:
https://yourwebsite.com/sitemap_index.xml
With the sitemap added, you can confirm whether or not Google is properly indexing your website. Any content that is not indexed will not appear in Google’s search results. Considering Google has 90% of the search engine market share, this can make or break your website.
Use Search Engine Console and ensure your website and all of its content are appearing in Google.
Collect Emails
This is another thing you may already be doing, but again, we want to cover the basics. Almost every website should be collecting emails, regardless of whether you’re currently doing email marketing. Having a database of relevant emails is very helpful, especially when you want to make an important announcement, offer a special deal, or kick off a marketing initiative.
If your website has any contact forms (and it should), you’re halfway there.
With a few contact forms in place, all you need to do is connect your site to an email platform like Mailchimp. Mailchimp is always my personal recommendation, as it’s easy to use, super flexible, and they have a free plan. They also have a cute brand and quirky sense of humor, which always earns bonus points in my book.
Anyway, with your website connected to an email platform, any email that comes through your website will automatically get added to the database, leaving you with a very helpful email list to use as needed.
Once you have this in place, you can look into more advanced actions like creating free offerings that visitors can receive in exchange for their email address.
Check Your Keyword Rankings
Alright, this one is a little more advanced, but if you’re serious about improving your website in 2024, you need to think about keyword rankings. This is arguably the most critical piece of search engine optimization (SEO).
What are keyword rankings, you ask?
In this context, keywords are specific words and phrases people use when searching for things in Google (and those other search engines almost no one uses).
For example, let’s say someone lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and they’re looking for a personal trainer. They may use the keyword “personal trainer Minneapolis.” Sounds simple, right? Well, this is where it starts to get trickier.
People may actually be more likely to use the keyword “Minneapolis personal trainer” or “personal fitness training Minneapolis” or “Twin Cities personal training” or some other combination. The key to find the keywords that are relevant to your brand, actually used by people browsing the internet, and attainable for your website.
How Do You Do This?
To research keywords and see which terms (if any) your website is currently ranking for, you’ll need to use a third-party tool like Moz or Ubersuggest. In my experience, Moz is better built and more robust, but it’s also pricier. Ubersuggest, on the other hand, has a free option, so let’s use that as an example for now.
To start, you’ll want to go here and create a free account.
Once your account is set up, you can enter the URL for your website, and the platform will automatically begin to review what your website is currently ranking for. It also provides a list of different recommendations you can make to improve your SEO, which is well worth looking through.
If you’ve never done any sort of SEO on your website, you’ll likely find you’re not ranking high for many (if any) relevant keywords. You can change this, but it’s going to take some work.
To start, you can use the Keyword Research tool to find relevant keywords for your brand. If you’re just getting started, I’d recommend focusing on just 5-10 keywords. Once you’ve chosen those, you can begin to update your website and optimize your content for search engines.
You can learn more about search engine optimization (and friendliness) in this post here.
Get Professional Strategy Support
If you’re a smaller business or you’re just starting your brand, it’s natural to try and do everything by yourself. The good news is that it’s never been easier for someone to set up a website, regardless of their experience in doing so.
But that will only get you so far.
Whether you’ve built your own website or you paid another company to do so, a basic, static website is not enough. With some professional strategy support, you can take your website to the next level while saving a lot of time and earning more business in the grand scheme.
We can help with that.
This Blank Page offers a range of content strategy & website support services designed to help sharpen your message, reach your ideal audience, and unlock your website’s true potential. Contact us today to learn how we can help you grow in 2024.
To kick off the new year, we’re also offering free website assessments that will give you personalized goals and action steps to take. Even if you plan to do everything yourself, this free assessment can make things a lot easier.
Here’s to a successful and prosperous 2024.
