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Website Improvement

The first matter to improve on your website will be your degree of control over it. If you rely too much on third parties for keeping it updated, or worse, don't keep your site updated at all, then you haven't got the foundation in place that's needed for your wider digital marketing work.

Some criteria of "control" are:

• You own all the access, accounts, and IP
• At least one person in your organization HAS all the access and ideally a good level of knowledge to access any part of your online systems
• You can freely move your site to new hosting if you want to upgrade or, conversely, save costs
• Your online systems are resilient, secure, and the software is kept up to date against malware threats
• You understand how and where sensitive data is stored and you are confident you are fulfilling your responsibilities for data protection
• You can control the design and layout of your website to a good extent separately from your content
• You can add and edit content on your website immediately any time you want without having to ask anyone
• You have a proactive task list for your website improvement, and at least a medium term queue of priorities you are putting in place (this is a "control" issue because if you are not working like that then you are just reacting /fixing instead of building)
• You have various ways to receive feedback from users and receive automatic alerts if anything is not working well on your site

If some of the above sound difficult then this is not unusual. Many small businesses find themselves in a position of paralysis because of not having the skills, confidence, and control to add and update their websites. However, since you have a website you are going to have to update your knowledge and management control over it, much the same way you know how to check the oil in your car -- or at least know how to find the right people for the right kind of servicing, to extend that metaphor.

At KnowledgePower it is one of our top focus points to ensure that we help clients gain the best possible level of control of their website. We help you with this via advice, hands-on technical assistance where needed, and our unique Webmaster Service for businesses without IT or digital marketing staff on the payroll to be able to manage websites.

At the same time, the idea of controlling your website comes with the understanding that you and your team are responsible for owning its performance and developing it into something really good for your customers. Marketing success does not happen automatically and even when you employ good marketers, it is a collaboration with your team and the core business ideas you have, not something where you delegate responsibility and hope for the best. Once we help you gain control over your website we will also help you gain strategic confidence about what you are doing in your online marketing, and how to focus your available resources on only the most relevant activities.

Free site errors / issues report

We provide a simple automated audit tool, where you can submit your website URL and receive a report of the main errors and SEO-related issues to fix on the site.

Find out what's helping and hurting your site from the point of view of some technical basics, and start creating a priority improvements list for your site. Remember: website improvement is incremental and continous - you don't have to change or fix everything all at the same time. That is a common reason for paralysis.

» Go here to get your report now [Free]

Note: SEO is not just a matter of fixing things on your site. That is just covering the basics of the site working properly and being legible to search engines. If SEO is going to be a principal part of your digital marketing strategy you should talk to genuine experts and expect to invest long term in content marketing. » Go here to read decision-making tips about which areas of digital marketing to focus on.

A website is never "finished"

Many businesses still view building a website as a one-off project, and the site hardly gets touched for months or years until someone decides it needs a "revamp" or "overhaul". If your business website work has been like this - infrequent, static, and project-based -- then it is probably a sign of a lack of control over your website and a lack of confidence.

With greater control and confidence you can see your website as a continuous and incremental marketing area. In particular, the more you can work on your website with small and continuous types of improvements, the more you can share the work and get everyone inside your team working on it and thinking up new ideas to make it better. The best websites are ones where everyone inside the business can contribute their ideas and expertise, not just a 3rd party designer or marketer.

Technical upgrades, software development, and aesthetic design logically should be done by skilled professionals and therefore make sense to take to agencies as projects. But the content and growth of the website should be under your own team's control as a continuous thing, as far as possible.

We've developed a model of the Five Progress Areas for Website & Digital Marketing - click here to read more

Web designers for designing websites, digital marketers for marketing digitally!

To design a website nicely, hire a web designer. To market using your website, hire a digital marketer. Not all designers and marketers are strong at all things, and focus / specialism is often an advantage. Ask questions and be wary of jacks-of-all-trades: not that many agencies (let alone individuals) can really encompass everything digital nowadays.

If you are looking for providers feel free to ask us for advice, as you will usually find it works better to separate design work from content and marketing work, than to seek proposals for 3rd parties to just "solve the website" and move on. The website is your responsibility and a growing thing that works for your business: we will help you build it on those lines.