Congratulations! You have a new baby website! It’s so cute, beautiful, and clean! You just can’t imagine any different. Well, how long ago was that? 6 months? 1 year? 2 years? Not so clean any more is it? Welcome to the toddler years. As any parent can tell you, toddlers are not clean and organized people. They require guidance and help along the way. Here are four ways you can help your website through the toddler years.

Content

You’ve done a great a job feeding your baby website, regularly adding Press Releases, Events, and new Products. But when was the last time you looked at your content as a whole? Not recently? Here are a few guiding questions:

  • Is there outdated information, like products or messaging?
  • Are the sections still organized in a logical manner?
  • Is there information, downloads, or videos that you haven’t added, but could?

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Oh no! The baby website has a fever! Many times new content is put in as an emergency, without a lot planning as to how it fits in within the rest of site. While new content is good, content that has been optimized for SEO is better. Here are a couple of guiding tips for website parents:

  • Do all of your pages have meta information?
  • Are you linking appropriate keywords to other pages within your site?

Lead Generation

Your baby website is starting to make its first friends. But are they the right kind of friends? Lead generation can be tough. Sometimes you have to meet a whole lot of people to find the right kind. A few more tips:

  • Are your current lead generation efforts working? If not, have you tried something else?
  • Are you adding additional calls-to-action on your website as you create more resources?
  • Do you have landing pages for PPC campaigns?

Design

Your baby website looks so cute dressed up! Until it gets into the finger-paint, that is! Over time, the look and feel of the website can feel disjointed as content is added or grows. You may also find that what looked beautiful on the hanger (aka when the website launched), really isn’t appropriate for your audience. Last bit of guidance:

  • Are any new pages following the same layout or feeling as the “old” pages?
  • Have you found that your calls-to-action aren’t getting clicked on?
  • Is there any part of your website that customers are commenting/complaining about or just isn’t working?

So what’s a parent to do?

Parenting a toddler website can be tough. But with the right guidance and help, it can continue to grow just fine. For most companies, the website is the most important marketing material they have. A periodic review and correction, like outlined above, can really help your website to continue to be something your company is proud of.