Your Website Can Be Improved

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Your website can be improved. Even if you last updated it just a few hours ago, it likely needs optimization. Website optimization is about making continual improvements to increase quality traffic and target your goals.

Website optimization involves more than your page content. It means keeping up with:

  • Your brand marketing strategy
  • Search engine optimization (SEO)
  • User experience (UX) and expectations
  • Content and technical website updates
  • Analytics and reporting

The internet and internet users are constantly evolving. Search engine algorithms change, user expectations change, new competitors pop up, existing competitors make updates, and new technologies are released. Your website also needs to constantly evolve and adapt to maintain its relevance and performance.

Optimizing Maximizes Your Results

Making sure that your website is up-to-date on all fronts keeps it working hard for you. You don’t miss out when people are searching for content that you provide. You don’t frustrate site visitors with broken links.

Search Engine Optimization

One of the areas of frequent chance is search algorithms. You need to actively make changes to keep up. SEO involves content optimization, technical optimization, and off-page optimization.

Content optimization for SEO is anything that’s user-facing on the page. This includes text, images, video, and any embedded content. These should be optimized for search and also the user.

Technical optimization for SEO includes things like your website’s information architecture, link structure, and development functionality. For example, a slow-loading website may need development updates for website speed optimization to meet both user expectations and Google’s core web vitals metrics.

Off-page optimization takes place on other parts of the web (e.g., link building).

User Experience Optimization (UX)

Put yourself in the shoes of a visitor and ask yourself questions like:

  • Can I find the information I’m looking for?
  • Can I accomplish the task I’m attempting?
  • Where are there dead ends?
  • Where are there obstacles to completing my desired task?
  • How are contact and demo pages converting, and is there room for improvement?

With this analysis in mind, you can prioritize UX improvement.

Reporting & Analytics

Optimization also means regularly reviewing Google Analytics. Without monitoring actual data, there’s no way to accurately benchmark your current performance, or identify opportunities to improve.

4 Essential Elements for Content Marketing

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Successful content marketing is more than the words and images ultimately published somewhere. The best efforts are supported by systems, processes, and resources. Here are 4 essential elements you need to succeed.

Content Marketing Editorial Plan

Why do you create content? What are your goals? Define an editorial strategy that outlines what you want to accomplish and the content that will get you there. Writing this down will increase your ability to stay focused on your goals.

Build out your plan by defining your audience. Who are they? What do they care about? How do they think about the topics you want to cover?

Next define the channels you will use to share your content with your audience. What is needed to be effective on each channel? What types of text and images work best? Outline the elements needed for an optimized post on each platform.

Map out the calendar. How often will you post? On which days and times?

Generate Ideas

Ideas sometimes flow and other times can be a chore. Have a way to document ideas whenever they come. Also have resources that can help you generate ideas when the inspiration is lacking. Your idea generation engine can involve:

  • Monitoring what competitors are doing
  • Engaging with influencers
  • Webinars – related to your marketing channels of choice and to your industry
  • Online idea generators

Define Measures of Success

You can’t keep your content marketing focused if you don’t know what’s working. Define your measures of success and monitor them regularly.

There are a lot of metrics out there. Pick the ones that are meaningful for your organization and goals. You don’t need to monitor all the metrics, just the ones that offer insight.

Document the metrics you want to track, and track them regularly. Make sure to plan for time to analyze the numbers for insights that let you know what to continue and what to change.

Let Technology Help You

Use tools that help you accomplish your content marketing as efficiently as possible. This can include stock photo sites, image creation tools like Canva, and scheduling tools like Hootsuite. Use your energies for the big picture thinking and creation, and let tools (or a great admin support resource) handle the day-to-day details.

Play Is a Great Way to Engage Remote Teams. I’m Serious!

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Guest post by Alexandra Suchman, Cofounder and CEO of Barometer XP

We’ve reached the point where it’s almost a cliche to talk about how hard it is to make meaningful connections with colleagues through Zoom boxes and Slack channels.

“Ugh, I’m so sick of Zoom” has become the new “I can’t believe this weather” as the small talk statement to foster some quick agreement at the start of a conversation.

Yes, connecting virtually, be it over phone, video, or written message, is way less satisfying than in person.

Yes, we are all sick of spending so much time staring at screens, and have found ways to keep meetings focused and short.

And yes, these remote ways of communicating force a more formal structure that doesn’t leave space (physical or metaphorical) for spontaneous, serendipitous interpersonal conversation.

But there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of simple, fun, and very effective ways to encourage great connection and engagement among remote teams. And you already know many of them.

Games!

Games are essentially a problem solving opportunity: the pursuit of a specific goal within a limited time, space, and set of rules. Every time we play a game, we bring our own unique skills, ideas, experience, communication style, approach to problem solving, etc. to the room, and it gives us a chance to examine how we (and others) show up in a situation.

Playing games with your work team not only will give you a chance to relax and have fun together, you’ll also gain valuable insights into how each other feels, thinks, and acts in different situations. Plus you’ll create some great memories, which are essential in building strong team identity.

Here are a few of my favorite games to play with remote teams that are not only fun, they help teams find creative ways to communicate with each other and practice thinking on their feet!

Codenames: This is a communication game with an espionage theme, where the goal is for a team to call all its agents back from the field using covert codenames. Teams compete to provide the most efficient and effective one-word clues without tipping off their opponents or accidentally alerting a hidden assassin!

Fishbowl: Another fun communication-based game, Fishbowl is a faster-paced game that combines Taboo, Password, and Charades as one person tries to help their team guess a secret word. Two teams compete to see who can guess more words before time runs out!

Need help picking the right game for your team? No problem, just email me at alex@barometerxp.com and I’ll give you some suggestions.

About the Author

Alex is CEO and Co-founder of Barometer XP, a company that uses games and play to catalyze insights and conversations about how team members can better communicate and work toward shared goals. Alex facilitates sessions that help teams learn about themselves and make meaningful, sustainable culture change.

Prior to Barometer XP, Alex founded AIS Collaborations, a consulting firm that helped small businesses with simple systems, stronger organizing techniques, and better planning. She has an MPP from The George Washington University, a BA in psychology from Colby College, and is certified as both a Project Management Professional (PMP) and DISC coach.