Creating web pages and posting content online has never been so easy which is why it’s easy to fire and forget. Plus with so many marketing channels and platforms at our disposal it’s harder than ever to keep track of it all…
That’s why it’s important every once and while to do a bit of house-keeping on some of your marketing functions and customer touch-points to ensure everything is in working order. Besides it’s better for you to stumble across a broken page, rogue review or dodgy contact form than a potential customer.
To help we’ve created this do-it-yourself marketing check-up you can do without the help of a marketing consultant. It might also be worth adding a reminder to your calendar every month or quarter so you revisit this – as the old saying goes a stitch in time saves nine. You might be glad you did. So grab yourself a cup of coffee and do a quick marketing check-up by following this list. Best of luck!
1. Check that your website receiving traffic
For this you’ll need to log in to your website analytics dashboard, the most popular tends to be Google Analytics which hopefully you have access too. Once you’re logged in you should see a graph on the homepage which hopefully isn’t flatlining and shows a steady stream of traffic arriving at your website.
2. Are your contact forms working?
Head on over to your website and fill in your contact forms, lead capture forms, calendar booking widgets – wherever you ask potential customers to complete information and check they’re working and send you a notification.
3. Check your email signature
When was the last time you had an objective look at your email signature? Could it do with an update? Perhaps there is a new product or service you could promote? Signatures are free advertising so make the most of them!
4. Do you have a cookie consent pop up setup?
You might already have this base covered but you if you don’t it’s time to get a cookie opt in feature on your website with a preference centre where visitors can adjust their cookie settings. We love the solution provided by CookieFirst.
5. Is your website secure?
This is a really easy one to check, just visit your website and you should see a padlock icon next too the web address. Depending on your setup your website address should start with either: https://example.com or https://www.examples.com If it doesn’t and you can’t see a padlock or the browser says ‘Unsecure’ then speak to your website developers or hosting company.
6. Check your website on a mobile
When was the last time you checked how your website looked on mobile? You’ll be surprised how often we find sites that still have mobile issues.
7. How many leads or enquiries have you had in the last month?
Once you know the number, is that inline with your expectation and if not, ask yourself why.
8. Ring your office telephone number
This might sound strange, but when you ring does the person (i.e. a member of your team) on the other end of the phone answer in a way you might expect? If not perhaps a refresher or some training is need. Remember the first impression your business makes on a potential customer is really important.
9. Google your business name
And then do a visual check on what appears in the results. Look for an rogue results in the SERPs (search engine results pages).
10. Site prefix search (Site:www.example.com)
Go to google and enter site: followed by your domain name without any of the www. or http: bits. For example site:justaddtreviss.com
This will give you a list of all the pages on your website indexed by Google. Again look for any old, discontinued or rogue pages that you might want to delete or 301 redirect.
11. Check your Google Business listing
Do the images look ok?, are the opening times correct?, have all reviews been replied too? Have bad reviews been addressed? If you don’t have a listing yet, head on over to Google My Business and create your free listing.
What did you find? Hopefully that’s been a useful checklist. At Just Add Treviss we offer a much more in-depth version of this health check. For more information please get in touch.