My neighborhood has those dog waste stations throughout. I don’t own a dog, but these seem to be handy stands. For about a month now, I’ve noticed one of those little black bags laying near the curb in one of my neighbor’s front yard. Every time I walk by with my family or go out for a run I see it. Week in and week out a bag of dog poop has been in their front yard. They are new to the neighborhood, so I have no idea if they own a dog or not. Regardless, I keep thinking, how could they not pick this up? It’s not overly gross or even that noticeable, but it’s still a plastic bag full of poop just laying there. I’ve hardly ever seen them out, and when I have they usually go straight from their front door to the car in the driveway.
Stick with me on this one…
My wife teases me about how my brain usually tracks back to work (a.k.a marketing and branding). I went out for a run on Friday and there was the bag - untouched and unnoticed. My ah-ha moment came as I ran on. I realized I’ve never met them, as they are rarely around, and they never spend any amount of time outdoors, especially not walking around their property. It’s probably not that they don’t care about a bag of poop, they just don’t realize it’s there. As I ran on, I thought about a few new client websites we are doing and about some of the conversations we’ve had with them lately. Most of them knew their current sites were pretty outdated, but none of them really knew what was out there. Some clients had very dated information, some had inaccurate team rosters. We even had a U.S. client with European spelling throughout their site. This whole post came together for me around mile 4. Most companies would pick up the poop on their website, i.e. clean up the garbage, but most don’t know it’s there. They either never step outside (visit their site very rarely), or head straight from the front door to the car (go to their Blog, or never venture past the home page). It’s time to get out and wander around your site, and possibly consider a website redesign all-together.
Careful Where You Step!
Really, go to your website as soon as you are done reading this. Dig deep, put yourself in your visitors’ shoes and do an honest assessment. So, what should you look for, and how do you avoid leaving ‘land mines’ for others to step in?
- Contact Info
- Location
- Spelling & Grammar
- Social Media account linking correctly
- Team roster & bios
- Products
- Partners, Carriers, Vendors
- Active areas - Blog, recent news, etc
- Mobile responsiveness
- Logo (can’t believe I had to list that, but I’ve seen sites where they never bothered to update their logo to their current one)
- Links all work and nothing is broken
- Navigation is active
- URLs are correct
Keep it simple
If you are reading this and thinking, “I wonder how much poop is laying on my site”, then let’s keep it simple. A little TLC could go a long way to up your brand and professionalism. Sure, there are a lot of other items to address on a business website including design elements, the buyers journey, calls-to-action, and setting up a foundation to deploy inbound marketing strategies; but, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither should your digital strategy. The reality is, simply cleaning up your website and doing a little bit of an update still puts you on par in most industries. That is ok for some. However, if you really want to dominate your competition online, then perhaps this next bit will interest you.
If you are a company that wants to do more with your website and digital marketing, then you are in luck! We are offering a complimentary website review to the first 5 companies that contact us. We will review your site, provide recommendations and provide you with a marketing grader score. Sound like a good deal? Then what are you waiting for!
Image credit www.qualitypetwastestations.com