Building a great website that aligns with your business’ brand and goals is no easy feat. You likely spent months creating it yourself or working alongside a development team or agency to launch your site. But launching your website is just the beginning of a long and dynamic journey: maintaining and continuously improving your website is crucial to ensure it continues performing as effectively as possible. Let’s take a look at why it’s essential not just to build a website and forget it but to make the most of your website investment! 

Converting Leads into Sales

What purpose does your website serve? Your simple but primary goal should be twofold:

1. Convert potential customers from leads into sales. What are your service offerings and service areas? What sets you apart from your competitors? 
2. Offer accessibility and ease of use to your current customers - how do they contact you? Can they access their customer portal? 

Reflect on the last 3-5 years. How many new competing businesses have opened or grown in your area? At their core, these companies are offering the same services as you, and with an increasing number of potential customers making their purchasing decisions entirely online, a robust and up-to-date website is essential for establishing your trust and credibility. Think about your website as a “virtual storefront” - introducing your services, showcasing why you’re the better choice for them over your competitors, and providing easy ways to contact you to buy your “product.” 

While all these things were likely considered while building your website, you’ll need to update regularly as your business evolves and grows. You may change service offerings, expand your service area, increase your pricing, introduce new features and integrations that improve your customer experience, gain positive reviews and feedback from satisfied customers that you can showcase, include seasonal offers for the most relevant common customer problems, and more. By consistently implementing these small but fundamental changes to your website, you can ensure it stays current, engaging, and effective. 

Strategic Optimizations: Playing Google’s Game

One of the biggest hurdles in seeing the return on investment from your website is playing Google’s game. This monster search engine calls the shots when it comes to performance. They are constantly changing their algorithm to determine what impacts a website’s ability to rank in the first few positions, what it takes for your business to show in the map section, how much and what kind of content is deemed valuable, what works and what doesn’t. You may think, “But we just discussed keeping my information current. Isn’t that enough?” Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Whether you built your site six months ago or six years ago, something has changed. To get the most out of your website in the long term, you’ll need to stay dialed in on the digital marketing industry and what Google’s latest update tells you. This could be completely pivoting your content strategy from localized content on specific services to more robust, informational blogs or slight tweaks of keywords throughout the content to capitalize on what terms people are searching most, changing your calls to action, etc.  

For businesses using paid advertising, ongoing website reviews are essential for optimizing ad performance, improving conversion rates, aligning with keyword trends, enhancing user experience and adapting to changes in the competitive landscape. Staying proactive can significantly enhance the return on investment from pay-per-click advertising campaigns.

Technical Trouble: Ensuring Consistent Quality Assurance & Security Maintenance

The least visible but arguably one of the most important pieces of making the most of your website investment is having solid quality assurance and maintenance to ensure your site’s technical health is supported. Without regular audits and tight security measures, your website can be left susceptible to security breaches, an influx of spam, user experience malfunctions, and more, all of which can be a major hassle to overcome. The best defense is a great offense - it’s essential to lean on your website developers' technical support and expertise, as they can spot potential problems early and address them before your website is impacted negatively. Having this support in place allows you to focus on the main goals of your website without interruption - converting leads into sales and allowing your current customers to contact you with ease.

When you take all of these website needs and knowledge of the digital industry into consideration, it can be a full-time job. Your best bet at success with seeing the continual ROI for your website is to enlist the help of a team of experts dedicated to your success. At Coalmarch, we are honed in on the pest and lawn care industry. We have in-depth knowledge of these industries, so we can make data-driven decisions based on seasonality, advances in pest and lawn care products and procedures, and the unique challenges of running a business in this field. Contact Coalmarch today!