How to Thoroughly Spring Clean Your Digital Places: Part 1

While we’re in the midst of spring with plenty of time on our hands due to lockdown, now’s a good time for business owners to pull up their sleeves and do a bit of spring cleaning. But while it’s great to dust cobwebs and polish the silver, giving your digital house (your digital presence) a clean is also essential. Spring cleaning your digital places is probably something you’ve been putting off for a while, but with more hours at your disposal, the best thing you can do for your hospitality business during downtime is to prepare it for the months ahead. 

1. Polish and Refine Your Website

According to seo.com [1], it’s important to constantly polish and refine your website since it is often the first interaction customers have with your entity. During your website spring clean, they suggest you:

• Update your contact details and include any icons that may lead to new social media pages.
• Add new blog posts (and continue to do so on a regular basis) – if you don’t have a blog, now’s the time to add one!
• Test all internal and external links to make sure they are not outdated or broken. Use a Chrome Plugin like Check My Links to do this in one click on your site – we do.
• Make sure that your contact form is working and goes to the right people.
• Use Google Analytics to see how much traffic your website draws and which pages your audiences favor or avoid – and why.

2. Update and Clean Your Social Media Pages

Your social media presence plays an important role in marketing your brand and maintaining its good reputation. Keeping your pages clean, accurate, and up to date is vital to the online health of your business. A digital spring clean here should involve:

• Update your profile and cover photos. Refreshing and rejuvenating your visual presence will show your fans you are active and wanting to interact.  You can keep your logo but upload new cover photos for your pages. You can also update your bio across your pages and add new photos of your products or services to your galleries. 

• Audit your posts and who you follow. Depending on how long you’ve had your social media business pages, there may be some posts that you no longer want to showcase. A good idea is to browse your older posts and review any that underperformed. As for what/who you follow, perhaps there are suppliers or other local businesses you could connect with (or disconnect from) to help improve your feed and how it inspires you.

• Check your privacy settings. Don’t neglect the security settings on social media platforms. Sometimes, more settings are added with updates and it may be worth your while to tweak old and additional settings to your liking. It’s important that your business profiles are secure and protected so that unwanted eyes cannot access your information. There could be former team members with admin access to your pages. Regularly updating passwords is a wise security move too.

• Take a quick peek at what your competitors are doing. Use your free time to browse the pages of your competitors and are other local businesses. See if they’re doing anything that you should be doing. While we are not encouraging you to replicate their material, their innovation may inspire you with some new ideas of your own.

• While you’re at it, you can also refresh your social media content calendar. Use your analytics tools to get insight into what has and hasn’t been working for you social media-wise. Then, revamp your strategy so that you can reach and engage with a broader audience. 

3. Spruce Up Your Appearance on Google

Don’t forget the important role Google plays when it comes to the reputation of your business. You may want to: 

• Google search your business. Are you listed on the first page? Is the information Google delivers about you accurate? Edit outdated information so that your brand remains consistent throughout all digital platforms and improves Search Engine Optimisation efforts so that you are found easily. Try searching as potential customers do like “healthy food restaurant Birmingham” rather than for the business name exactly.
  
  Tip: make sure you log out of Google or use an Incognito browser window before you do your search. This avoids personalised search results. 

• Claim your pages. During your Google search, you might find some MyBusiness pages you didn’t know belonged to you. These pages add value to your online brand, and you can claim them and update them accordingly. There may even be some reviews you can respond to and you can build some new relationships. The same applies to other directory listings – see if you’re indexed correctly and bulk up your newfound listing with some fresh and encouraging content. 

• Put some elbow grease into removing content you’re not happy with. If there is any content online that you do not want your brand’s name associated with, now’s a good time to take a proactive approach. Contact website administrators and request that the content is removed (politely, of course). If they refuse to do so, it’s in your right to seek legal action. 

Spring is a great time to bring new life to your business – even if you are restricted by lockdowns and impossible regulations. You can use your time constructively to refresh your outlook, your business, and your strategy going forward.

Stay tuned for “How to Thoroughly Test and Spring Clean Your Digital Places: Part 2”. Here we’ll suggest how you can clean out other digital “nooks and crannies”. 

For more information on more ways to use digital technology to help your business, please contact us here at Stampede. 

References:

[1] seo.com – Spring Clean Your Website