A quick audit lets you “check in” with some of your business’ online marketing tactics, and the start of a new year is a perfect time to make sure things are up to date and not getting stale.
Start by looking at these marketing elements:
- Your website
- Your online reviews
- Your social media
- Your Google Business Profile
- Your LinkedIn profile
Website audit questions
- What do you want your website to do for you?
- What do you want it to do for customers / clients?
- How old / fresh is the content?
- How fast does your website load? Use Page Speed Insights to check: https://pagespeed.web.dev/
- Does your site content include calls to action?
- What does it look like on your phone?
Online reviews
- How many reviews do you have?
- What’s the average rating?
- How recent are the reviews?
- Look at several competitors and ask the same questions. How do you compare to them?
Social media
- When was your cover photo updated?
- When was your profile photo updated?
- Is your profile photo legible?
- When was your last post?
- Do you have a plan for scheduling posts?
- If you’ve abandoned any of your social media, have you removed the link from your website?
Google Business Profile
- Have you claimed and verified your Google Business Profile? (Verification can take a couple of weeks. If you haven’t claimed your profile, start here, https://business.google.com/create.)
- Is your profile information complete and up to date? Check your business name, address and phone number. Check your hours. Check your business description and category.
- Are your business profile photos up to date and of good quality?
- Have you added any articles to your profile?
- Have you answered any questions on your profile (or have you created some questions and written the answers)?
- Do you know how to make changes to your profile? (Log into the Gmail account you used to create the profile and then visit maps.google.com)
- Do you still look like your profile photo?
- Does your profile headline still match what you do for clients and customers?
- Is there anything you should add to or delete from your profile description?
- Have you set up a business profile page for LinkedIn?
- Are you commenting on posts by your peers, either by mentioning something from your own experience or asking relevant questions?
- Are you sharing posts that you find interesting?
Bonus Question
- Is everything spelled correctly?
Consider these questions a “starter” list, not a comprehensive one. You might have some additional questions to ask, or the answers to some of these questions might give rise to more in-depth questions.
It’s common for small businesses to unintentionally ignore their online marketing efforts. After all, owners are busy running their businesses. A quick audit and fixing some of the issues that arise, however, is a good way to stay a little ahead of the competition.
Mark Whittaker, a Pittsburgh-based online marketer, helps small businesses and start-ups find customers with search and social media advertising, content development and digital marketing strategy. Write to him at mark (at) whitmarkdigital.com and subscribe to his fortnightly email.
