Well, 2013 certainly seemed to fly by! January comes around any many website owners find there are lots of “website admin” things still hanging around on the to do list from last year. The difficulty is knowing where to start! Here are some new years resolutions that every website owner should have to get things in order for a successful 2014.

1. Software updates

Software can quickly become out of date and platforms such as WordPress make revisions and amendments to their software and plugins regularly. Having the most up to date software can help protect you against hackers and other bugs which may have found ways to penetrate the security systems on older versions. Remember to back your site up before making any updates!

2. Backup

You should be backing your website up at least monthly (more if you update it a lot). There is nothing more annoying than losing months worth of work because you haven’t taken a backup. If its been a few months since your last backup, take this opportunity to back it up now. Instructions for how to do this for free are here.

We also offer an automatic backup service for £29.99 per year for website owners who struggle to find the time to back their site up regularly. Read more

Order Snapshot backups

3. Eliminate spam

Spammers are one of the most annoying things about running a blog. Leaving comments on your site can be damaging and makes you look unprofessional to potential customers – especially when the comments are irrelevant (and they usually are). Spend some time deleting these comments & add any recurring spam IP addresses / any particularly frequent spam terms to your spam filter.

One tip might be to block any posts which contain links by blocking http:// or www. in your comment section. Spammers also go through phases, UGG Boots may be the topic of one bunch of spam posts, Prada Handbags another, Pharmaceuticals and Weight Loss another. Any terms you notice cropping up regularly, add to your spam filters.

4. Content Audit

If you can, put some time aside for an audit of your content and website. Particularly any product pages or important conversion pages. If you have a team of people working on the website this might be something that you all do. Google likes pages which are updated regularly so as well as providing more up to date content for your readers, this could help your search engine rankings.

The basic checkpoints for auditing a website page

• Is the title correct?
• Proof reading – are there any spelling mistakes / grammatical errors?
• Are the pictures still relevant?
• Is the information still factually correct?
• Do all the links on this page still work? Make sure you remove any broken links
• Is the page formatted correctly?

5. Website redesign

Is the new year time for a new you? How long has it been since your website was first designed.
We recommend that you give your website a redesign every 3 years to keep it looking fresh and modern. Just think about all the new technology that has emerged in the past three years. How does your website work on a smartphone?

A redesign is the perfect opportunity to redo anything which hasn’t panned out as you expected when first designing it. Perhaps you are using the site differently to how you envisioned. There might be parts of your site which are no longer relevant, or parts of your site which have turned out to be really important and need putting into a more prominent position.