3 Things You Can Do Right Now to Get More from Your Website

A website is a huge commitment, from the time & resources put forth to create a beautiful site to the ongoing maintenance to keep your website up to date. But it seems like everyone wants to get a little bit more out of their site each day. Here are 3 things you can do right now to get more from your website:

1. Blog

I’m sure by now you’re tired of hearing “blogging is the single best thing you can do for your website.” I’m sorry to say, but it’s honestly the best thing you can do. Google is always crawling your site (and the millions of other sites on the web) for new content. If you frequently add content to the site in the form of blogs, Google will have more to scan and therefore will rank you higher.* Blogging also allows you to keep up with industry news (by researching for your blogs), strengthen relationships with your clients, and establish yourself as an industry leader.

*Rankings are made up of dozens of factors. If you’d like to learn more check out my blog from September with some tips centered around E-A-T.

2. Respond to contact forms in a timely fashion

If a customer (or potential customer) is contacting you via a contact form on your website, they generally will have a time-sensitive question or request. The faster you respond to these contact form submissions, the more likely they will stick around. While responding on the same day is ideal, here at Atilus we have a 24-hour response time (excluding weekends). If you don’t immediately have a response for the question posed in the contact form a quick “Thank you for contacting *insert name*, we’re looking into your request and will have an answer *insert expected timeline*” is better than not responding to them until you have an answer.

TL;DR: Respond to your contact form submissions as soon as you feasibly can, even if it’s a “we’re looking into it” email.

3. Read & respond to comments on your blog

Yes, responding to the comments (assuming they’re not spam) on your blog does help. It shows your readers that you’re engaged with them and not just posting content for SEO purposes. In addition, responding to comments will also increase the number of long-tail keywords that appear on the specific page. This again will also build relationships with your blog readers/customers. Taking the time to read & respond to comments will help you in the long-run.

BONUS! 4. Claim your Google My Business listing

Claiming your Google My Business (GMB) listing has so many benefits – first and foremost it helps your business become more visible on the web. Once you claim the GMB listing, you’re able to control the content that is shown when your business is shown on Google. This includes the logo, business hours, location, and the correct web address. I can’t tell you how many unclaimed GMB listings I’ve seen with the wrong web address and making this simple change can help tremendously.

Now you have 3 (+1)  things to help get the most out of your website. Any that I missed? Let me know down in the comments!