Website SEO Cleanup: Why Do Spring Cleaning

Small businesses know about cleanup campaigns. They manage inventory, work to keep offices and personnel operating efficiently, and when things get messy, they reorganize. Your website is your business, too. And when it begins operating inefficiently, you need a website seo cleanup campaign.

Why Business Websites Need to Cleanup

What’s the best reason for a small business website cleanup? Most would agree: Google ranks your website and your competitors’ based on up-to-date content using industry-best practices. Without maintenance and cleanup, your website can get Google-dinged and slip into search engine purgatory (Google page 2).

Website cleanup can eliminate or reduce:

• Archived pages – Blog-page archives are valuable but can slow website load times and hurt crawl budgets. Often times you’ll see blogs paged out into the hundreds of pages. Ideally your archived blog index should link to the “Next” page only… rather than page 253 from 2012.  

• Duplicate content – The Areas We Serve page” for Spring, TX must be unique from other pages. A lot of local marketing companies will try to use the same location content except for swapping out the city. That won’t cut it. 

• Load time – If it takes more than seconds for a page to load, you’ve probably lost customers. Make sure pages haven’t bloated with comments or images that aren’t cached.

• Navigation issues – Navigation problems that slow webpages’ load times can include broken pages, page-order disorder, redirects, and more. Website structure should promote intuitive navigation for greater SEO and faster navigation. Always make sure your mobile site is using the same re-styled navigation menu rather than a second one in the html. 
  

Outdated content – In addition to information that is inaccurate or irrelevant, if users click a link and go nowhere, they may give up and search elsewhere. Outdated content includes:

• Discontinued services or products
• False facts or data
• Old SEO strategies that don’t meet the latest standards
• Undated information that confuses users about its timeliness or relevance
• “About Us” or “Meet The Team” pages with long-gone personnel

Security issues – Savvy website users look for an SSL/TLS certificate (https://) and trust badges (logos or statements that explain how privacy is protected). Slow-moving websites are also easier to hack. Site security can be strengthened during a website cleanup campaign:

• 2-factor authentication
• Backups
• Content audits, refreshers
• Secure login pages
• Software updates
• Website scanners

8 Tips For Website Cleanup

All content should be current and accurate on every page. Website pages should load quickly and have a logical, intuitive flow. Here are 8 tips to follow for a DIY website cleanup:

1. Blogs should flow chronologically from newest to oldest. Not having blog posts “paged out” means users have a difficult time accessing and/or finding information.
2. Compress graphics, images, and videos to enhance load speed. Take advantage of white space to enhance crowded and difficult-to-read pages.
3. Contact Us pages should be uncluttered and user-friendly.
4. Pages should be designed using shared layouts, fonts, colors, etc. Too many designs and patterns can be off-putting and even confusing to website visitors.
5. Reduce pop-ups and banners; they can distract and cause users to deviate from their goals.
6. Remove dated or duplicate pages and redirect the page URLs to more timely, applicable pages.
7. Review every page and remove dated, duplicate, or inaccurate content.
8. Test your website every month on several electronic devices and try Google, MS Edge, etc. on every device to ensure functionality for all users.

Time for a Cleaning?

You should keep your teeth clean. But a dental professional can see problem areas before they need medical intervention. It’s the same way with websites. Modern Marketing & Media’s digital professionals specialize in data management and information communication technologies (ICT), and we can see some of the problems that are slowing your website (and your profits).

Let’s evaluate your website performance