As the weather warms up most of us are inspired to take to cleaning out our houses and airing out the winter’s dust. This is true of most brick and mortar businesses as well; when Spring arrives the store gets a solid once over and exterior sprucing. Yet, when it comes to the websites that we labor for months building and fine tuning, once they are complete they often sit untouched with the exception of adding more material. If you operate an online business or website, there is no better time than with the arrival of warmer weather to dive into your website and start some Spring Cleaning.
Our websites collect almost as much clutter, dust and unfinished projects as our homes and giving your site a good Spring scrub down can help restore loading speeds, give a fresh new look and just keep your online life a bit more organized. Depending on your skill level, you may be able to do some MySql and server side file maintenance cleaning, but even if you are only familiar with your website’s admin area, it is still the best place to hop in and start doing a bit of website maintenance.
Things you can do to update and clean out your website include:
1. Get rid of old drafts in content management system-If you haven’t posted them or finished them after 6 months it is likely that they’ve lost their thunder.
2. Update your information-This means all your information including contact email addresses, phone numbers, addresses and especially your site’s copyright information. Also if you host any forms on your site, make sure they are updated to the current year as well.
3. Update your content-Take a quick cruise through your site’s content and do some updating. At the same time take a glance at your analytics and see if you need to adjust your content keywords and just give your content a freshening up.
4. Review your photos and graphics-Many sites are constantly adding new media including photos and videos. Take some time to go through your site and be sure that your photos are up to date and that all of your media has quality alt tag attributes assigned to them.
5. Add the new features-While you are updating you might as well be adding any new features you have been itching to put up on your site.
6. Check your links-This means internal and outgoing. Make sure you are linking properly between the pages of your site and make sure that locations outside your site are working properly too. Also review your webmaster tools for broken links and errors on your site that can lower your search engine rankings.
7. End Construction Zones-Put an end to all unfinished projects. If you have maintenance pages up, it is time to finish the project or take them down.
8. GET RID OF THE CLUTTER-Take the time to step back and look at your website. Is it easy to identify your brand or marketing or are you a billboard for social media sites and affiliate marketing links? Clear the clutter and restore the image of your website to center attention back on you.
9. Update your social media button-Make sure that you have included all of your networks and that you have updated links to the correct pages within the social networks.
One of the best ways to remove the clutter and get your website looking clean and sharp is to replace bulky social media buttons with the sleek and sheik Follow Me button from Social Follow. The free Social Follow button from Studio98 keeps all of your social networks in one easy location allowing your online visitors to find you in the networks they are already a part of.
Plan your website cleaning for at least 2 times a year; once in Spring and once in the Fall. This will keep your website fresh and new for all who come to visit you.
As feng shui is the art of placement, web shui is the art of placement in terms of your web design; or so the Internet has unofficially coined the term as such. While the layout and usability of your website are critical to your visitor conversion success rate, the placement of your social media buttons (in particular your 
