The Christy Kiltz Commentaries

Q4 is when businesses do their strategic planning for the coming year. Budgets are reviewed and ROI (Return on Investment) is measured for the year’s marketing efforts. Some companies stop with money spent vs sales made. But, if you do stop there, you’re leaving an entire element untouched. Your website should be a part of these strategic sessions in several ways, and that’s what we’re going to take a look at today.

Analyze Traffic To & Through the Website

Google Analytics, or any other solid analytics program should be one of the first places you look when you start your website review. Don’t stop with just traffic to the website, look at the bounce rate for your home page, any landing pages, and any strategic content pages.

If you’ve invested in content creation over the past year, what kind of traffic are these pages getting? And, what websites are linked to those pages?

Another key element is seeing how people travel through the website. If you see that they are stuck in a circular pattern, many times that means they are not finding the information they are looking for.

How Are Your Pages Ranking in Google?

It’s no secret that quality content is important to a well-ranking website. As you’re doing your marketing plan for next year, review how the content you wrote this past year.

What keywords did you plan to rank for this past year? As you wrote your content, it should have been in alignment with your keywords. Have you seen an increase in ranking for the pages you wrote the content for?

Is Your Website Up to Date?

This is the perfect time of year to do a full review of your website. Have their been staffing changes you didn’t remember to make earlier? Have you expanded or changed your services? Have you made any changes to your brand over the past year? If yes, is the content on your site still in alignment with your brand?

Research is Done, Plan for the Next Year

With the review of these three elements completed, it’s time to plan for next year. Your marketing calendar should include all of your marketing activities – social media, paid or print advertising, and your website.

Plan Your Keywords

What keywords do you want to rank for next year? These keywords should build out topics for the upcoming year. And, the topics translate into new content for your website. Create a content cycle that is something that you can keep up with. Unless you’ve got a team of people writing for you, one new article a month is a solid goal.

Plan Your Website Updates

This isn’t a brand new website unless you need it. Plan what updates need to happen based on what you uncovered in your website review. Also, consider improving the pages you currently have on your website. If you’re short on content for an important service page, adding an FAQ section or additional information will give it the boost it needs to rank better.

Review Your SEO Strategy

Google is constantly changing and testing its algorithm – in order to keep the playing field level and to give the best search results experience possible. So, reviewing your SEO strategy isn’t a set & forget it for the upcoming year.

As you identify the content you want to create, plan ahead for the overall content strategy in order to get the best result possible.

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For a free consultation on your marketing plan, send an email to christy@designbykiltz.com with the subject line Strategic Marketing Plan.

Until next time,
Cheers! To your Business!

Christy Kiltz is the owner of Design! By Kiltz Internet Solutions and has been taking care of business owners online since 2001. Her high-touch digital agency is located in Southern Oregon and provides comprehensive online marketing services and technology solutions that free up business owners to focus on what they love to do instead.

According to Christy, “Service-based business clients come to us spinning their wheels trying to make money online. We form a partnership to turn their websites into lead-generating machines. Our White Glove Growth program is designed to help you get more leads and grow your business.”

In addition to building websites and offering technical support, Christy’s primary focus is education and empowerment. By toning down the “geek” and offering practical tools easily understood by non-technical folks, Christy opens the black box of technology with classes, webinars, and web tips developed to demystify digital marketing. With ease and a bit of humor, she reminds us that while technology continues to move forward at warp speed, many foundational marketing principles remain.