I don’t know about you, but getting work done over the holidays is a challenge. So here I am post-holiday, still trying to complete projects that had filled my calendar the weeks of and after Christmas.

The biggest project was my website, and so far I have redone or newly-posted five pages, sorta-kinda kept up with my blog, and managed to successfully post my weekly management tips (I call them TWIPS) on Twitter.

And wouldn’t you know, website traffic in January is poised to surpass any of the last thirteen months.

This has been the same every time. Make changes, traffic improves. It’s my #1 cardinal rule for websites – they must be updated regularly.

People come to your site, check you out, and maybe even come back again. But if they keep coming back and nothing changes, they stop coming back. Traffic declines. (Same thing happens to retail stores that don’t regularly re-merchandise.)

Related to this is how you show up in searches. I’m no expert on how all this works, but I’ve read many times that fresh content is given weight by the search engines. Which increases traffic. Which makes your site even more relevant to future searches.

Internet search, of course, is how most of the world is now finding providers for goods and services. You can throw out all other forms of mass advertising. If you’re not being found on web searches, you’re losing a lot of potential new customers to competitors who are being found.

Which brings me to today’s tips for improving your website. But first…

2012 Profit Management Program

This year’s program is the best yet. It starts with a 3-session workshop and then, March thru November, continues with monthly profit review (by me), and on-line group meetings to discuss strategies and actions for improving company productivity. The program is absolutely proven to help companies increase profits. At under $2000 for the 10-months (Feb thru Nov) – payable in five installments – it is a seriously valuable investment in your company’s future. Click the link above for more info.

5 Easy Ways to Improve Your Website

List the area(s) your company serves on every page of your website. This will help you move up in local search rankings. Develop a page-footer that includes your address and phone, and the towns/areas where your potential clients live.

Maximize the relevance of the browser tab title. This is the copy you see when you hover over the “browser tab” for the webpage. You need more than your company name here, because this is key indexing info for search engines. And there should be different title info for each page, matched to the content of that page. This is the best spot for actively-used keywords.

Place a call to action on each page. You should definitely have a “contact us” link on each page, in case they want to do what you really hope they do – which is give you their name and number. But 96% of visitors aren’t ready to ID themselves, so you need to also give them a “softer” way to learn more about what you provide, and why you are the best provider. White papers, a link to your blog, a “learn more” link that takes them to additional info… these help visitors actively engage with your website.

Photos with captions. I love project galleries, except few of them tell me what I’m supposed to be looking at. A picture is worth a thousand words IF… there are a few words explaining what to look for in the picture.

Maintain a blog. OK, this one’s not easy. But it’s essential, and helps to keep things fresh for the search engines. Feature a project, with some recent photos (and captions, of course). Write a new installment weekly. It doesn’t have to be long, just good spelling and grammer.

QuickBooks for Integrators™ 16th edition starts Feb 17

If this is the year to get your job administration and bookkeeping together, this is the course to show you the best way to do it. 4 90-minute on-line sessions, a wealth of process docs and instructions, and a course CD that lets you go back and re-watch anything you might have missed. Click here for more info.