Block time in your calendar before the end of the year to review your online marketing and ensure it is accurate and up-to-date for potential leads.
The end of the year is often a busy time for small-business owners, as we juggle family life, kids at home from school, holidays, client work, and trying to keep working on our businesses. However, it is the perfect time for a quick review of your online presence before the new year begins, to ensure that the information available online about your business is up-to-date, relevant and reflects the messaging and brand of your business.
There are four main areas I recommend that you review and test out.
These four areas ensure that potential leads that come across your website and social media channels will be met with the correct information and will be able to connect with you easily.
Worst-case scenario: Someone finds your amazing free guide to download but there is something wrong with the automation so they do not receive a download link once they’ve submitted the form. Or, your social media profile has not been updated with your new contact information and the change in services you offer. It is very unlikely that someone will go the extra mile to reach out to you in a different way if they get stuck at a roadblock, and so they will move on to someone else – most likely one of your competitors. If you do not take a few minutes to complete a review of these four areas, you will lose out on potential leads – leads that could turn into paying clients.
So that this does not happen, here are four areas of your online marketing to test and review before the end of the year.
1. Test your forms
When was the last time that you tested the opt-in forms on your website? Was it when you first set the form up or have you tested the process since then? This may be one of the most important items to check for your online marketing. Forms are notorious for breaking, and very few people are going to take the extra time to find a way to let you know that a form isn’t working.
Test the process for all forms on your website – landing pages, opt-in forms and even your contact us form – as if you are a potential client. Go through the process from start to finish. Is there anything you need to update in that process to keep your website relevant and up-to-date? Take this time to make adjustments so that you don’t lose out on potential leads in the coming year.
2. Test your website links
In the same way that your forms can stop working, links on your website can also become broken. When someone tries to open a link that is broken, they will be redirected to a 404-error page.
For WordPress users, you can simply install a “broken link checker” plugin that will search your website for links that are broken and alert you when a broken link is found. Go to “Add Plugin” and type in “broken link checker” in the search bar. Install the first plugin – “Broken Link Checker” and activate it to start checking for those broken links (see image below). If you do have a link that is broken, you can use a redirection plugin such as “Redirection” or “Quick 301 redirect” to redirect that broken URL to a proper, working URL.
You can also use an online broken link checker website where you input your website URL and it searches the pages to find any broken links. However, if you choose this method I do highly recommend that you make this a monthly task to complete as you won’t receive alerts like you will from using a plugin directly on your website.
3. Clean up your email list
The third task that you should be reviewing, at minimum, on an annual basis is your email list. Cleaning up your email list periodically by removing inactive subscribers or those who are no longer interested in receiving your emails is highly recommended to keep your deliverability rating good. There are two main benefits to cleaning up your email list:
- Your open rates will improve as you have a higher percentage of people on your list who are interested in opening and reading your emails. This will also improve your deliverability as you are sending to more engaged subscribers.
- You may be able to downgrade to a lower plan, reducing your monthly bill, if the number of cold subscribers that you remove reduces your total number of subscribers moving you into a lower threshold.
Prior to deleting your cold or un-engaged subscribers, you may want to send them through a small nurture sequence that gives them the option to stay on your email list or unsubscribe without you deleting them yourself. (Read this article for 3 more benefits plus a 5-step process to cleaning up your email list: How to Clean your ConvertKit Email List in 5 Steps)
4. Update your Social Media profiles
The final item that you should review and update when it comes to your online marketing is your social media profiles. Do your social media profiles reflect your business as it is now? Is the information correct and up-to-date?
For each profile, check that the below items include the relevant information, are up-to-date, and all links are working properly:
- Contact information
- Website URL
- Any additional URLs are up-to-date and relevant
- Bio and About sections
- Cover images
- Services section on your Facebook Page
By reviewing these four areas: forms, website links, email list and social media profiles, you can ensure that the information you are displaying online for your business is correct, relevant and accurate. It will also ensure that those who come across your social media profiles or website will be able to connect with you in a simple, easy process.
These four areas of your online marketing should be reviewed, at minimum, on an annual basis. However, I highly recommend adding this review into your quarterly or even monthly tasks if able.
Resource: To help with your end-of-the-year review, I’ve created a checklist that you can use to work your way through these 4 areas (and there is room to add in additional areas that you want to review). Grab the checklist here and use it at the end of every year, or even quarter to do that quick review.
