5 New Year’s Resolutions for Your Website

After days of gorging on food and drink and forgetting to put on real pants, you’re ready to get your ass in gear and start this year with a bang.

You’ve got a Pinterest board full of green smoothie recipes and a pile of kale so large your partner is worried about the smells that will soon be emanating from your behind.

You bought multiple 2016 goal workbooks and have calendars and planners to keep yourself on track. Psst, love the colored markers and post-it notes.

You’ve planned every possible aspect of your life and business for the upcoming year. Everything except your website.

Evaluate and refresh your website for the new year.

You know all those things you’ve let slide on your website over the past year? Now is the time to finally resolve them. Here are 5 New Year’s resolutions for your website.

1. Lose Weight

Every single piece of your website should exist to engage visitors and get them to take an action. Having too much stuff on your website distracts visitors from doing the things you want them to do (sign up for your newsletter, schedule a free consultation, etc).

Do This: Take a good hard look at your homepage and blog sidebar. Remove anything that doesn’t provide value to your visitors or help them complete the actions you want them to take.

Does anyone click on the image slider on your homepage or is it only there because you think it looks cool? Does anyone use the blog archive in your sidebar or would a list of popular blog posts be more useful to readers?

2. Get Organized

How many times have you intended to blog more…except it never happened? The key to actually doing it is planning and organization.

Do this: Make an editorial calendar.

Determine a realistic blogging schedule. Forget what other people are doing and figure out what works best for you. Then brainstorm 5 blogging categories that your ideal clients would be interested in and are related to your business.

Set a timer for 10 minutes and write down every blog post idea that comes to mind. Start writing those posts and scheduling them in advance. Rinse and repeat when you run out of posts.

3. Help Others

Your website isn’t about you. It’s about your ideal customers, target audience, dream clients, whatever you want to call them. Make sure your website helps them by providing the info they need.

Do this: Ask three people to look at your website to make sure it’s easy to use and navigate.

Can they immediately tell what your site is about? If not, adjust your header and/or tagline until they can.

Once they know what your site is about, do they know what to do next? If not, add a call to action on your homepage guiding visitors to what you want them to do (signup for your newsletter, schedule a consultation, etc).

Can they easily find your contact information? If not, add a link to your navigation menu.

4. Learn Something New

You don’t need to be a web genius to manage your own website. But it does help to have a basic understanding of HTML and CSS. You’ll be able to make small changes yourself and pinpoint what needs to be fixed when something goes wrong.

Do this: Complete Codecademy’s free HTML & CSS for Beginner’s learning track. Or form an ongoing relationship with a web developer who can make customizations and changes for you.

5. Redecorate

New year, new look. Give your website a fresh look by updating your photos and graphics.

Do this: Grab your BFF and iPhone, head to one of your favorite outdoor spots and have a mini photo shoot. Coffee works well as a bribe. If you hate getting your picture taken as much as I do, make it an Irish coffee.

If you’ve been bored and unhappy with the overall layout and look of your website, start shopping for a new WordPress theme to give it a makeover.