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Website checklist for 2009: is your website ready
for the new year?
The new year 2009 might be a tough year for many businesses
but if you do it correctly, it can be a very successful year
for you.
Before you start with new things, you should make sure that
your current website is up-to-date. The following checklist
will help you:
Step 1: Check your company information
Does your about page draw a current picture of your company?
If you have a staff listing on your website, is it up-to-date?
Check these pages as well as the copyright notice and
the privacy police of your website to make sure that your
web pages don't look outdated.
Step 2: Check your contact information
Does your website list your current phone and fax numbers?
Are the mailing and email addresses listed on your website
correct? You'll lose customers if your contact information
is outdated.
You should also check the email addresses that you use
on your website. Are help@yourdomain.com, info@yourdomain.com,
order@yourdomain.com, etc. redirected to the correct recipient?
Send test email messages to all addresses that are listed
on your website.
Many businesses have so strong spam filters that many
legit customer email messages don't reach them.
If you have contact forms on your website, make sure that
they work and that they are easy to use. If someone doesn't
enter a correct email address in your contact form, does
the error message make sense?
Step 3: Check your auto-responders
Do you send automated confirmation messages when someone
sends you an email message? Does your shopping cart send
email messages after an order?
Check the text of your automated messages to make sure
that it says what you want to say and that is contains
current information.
Step 4: Check the links on your website
The older your website is and the more pages your website
has, the more likely it is that it contains some broken
links. For that reason, you should regularly check the
links on your website.
You can find a free link checker in the free demo of IBP. Download the
free IBP demo version and select the link checker under
IBP > Tools > Broken Link Checker.
Step 5: Check if your web pages are ready for Google
If you want to get high rankings on Google, you must make
sure that it's easy for Google to parse your web pages.
Can Google easily find all of your web pages? Do you target
the right keywords on your web pages? Are all elements
of your web pages optimized for Google? You
can check this with IBP's Top 10 Optimizer.
The economic times are tough but it also depends on you
whether 2009 will be a successful year for your website or
not. If you do the right things, chances are that your website
will help you to get more customers this year.
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