At the moment, I’m working on a beautiful 52-foot Chinese Junk. For those of you who aren’t boaters, it’s basically a long, thin, wooden yacht with a unique set of rigging that gives it its name. It’s moored at a marina in the middle of a huge, amazing city, and every day I get to interact with this majestic beauty and give it love (via scrubbing, cleaning, sanding, and painting).
Photo: What I had no idea about when I started working on the boat, was that it had a long history of being up for sale. It’s my understanding that there was never much interest in it, and the seller isn’t quite motivated to part with her, so she’s been sitting here not doing much of anything.
The community at the marina is a tight one, and the moment something new happens, everyone knows. It became a normal occurrence to hear “Oh, are you the new owner?” from anyone passing by. I’d always respond with a variation of, “No, I’m just doing work for the current owner.”
Regardless, people were always greatly enthused by the fact that she was receiving maintenance, and they always made a point of letting me know that she rarely went out, and didn’t get much attention.
Something changed though, after she’d been scrubbed down with boat soap and some problem areas were sanded down – they began asking very direct questions about her. No one had been aware she was made entirely of wood, and they were wondering why she was being painted and not varnished, to show off her beauty.
These questions changed after painting began. They started asking what the boat was like inside, if she was still for sale, and if I knew how much she was being sold for. The lingering, thoughtful looks became a more common occurrence.
It made me realize that something as basic as a scrub, sand, and paint could completely change the outlook of people who have been walking past her for a decade. I’m sure these boat owners never thought that they would be interested in buying this large floating junk, and now, they’re asking for a price tag.
Yet all that has changed is taking something that has been disused and overlooked, and giving it love and attention.
Make Your Website Ship-Shape
A large website can get away from us. It’s been there for as long as anyone can remember, and content just keeps getting added to it, in whatever the html standard is for that year. It becomes hard for people to navigate, and for Google to search through. Information can quickly become outdated, even embarrassing.
Design trends change all the time, and for those of you who remember the days of over-cluttered backgrounds and animated icons, that’s probably a relief. Every once in a while when I stumble on one of these sites I cringe and think, “You never moved on!” I also leave as quickly as I can and find something less uncomfortable or demanding.
If cleaning up messy html code is “scrubbing”, ditching all that really bad content is “sanding”, and improving the design and visual appeal of the site is “painting”, then fixing up a website is much like fixing up a boat. It’s a given for any website that new content needs to be added on a regular basis, so let’s just say this is the constant, ongoing maintenance that keeps everything fine-tuned.
Doing any one of these adjustments will be an improvement. All of these things combined will get people interested and turn visitors into leads, and perhaps even into customers.
Step 1: Clean Up Your Messy Code (Scrub)
Go through all your pages and posts, and clean up all the messy code. While you’re there, check images and tags and make things as sleek as possible. If you don’t know how to do part of it, or all of it, hire someone who does.
Doing this will make your site easier for the search engines to crawl. Search-friendly websites compete in the search engines, and they download faster, providing a better user experience.
Step 2: Ditch Bad or Old Content (Sand)
Some content may not be worth keeping, or be outdated and need some changes. A word of caution, however, that some of these pages may be historically well-ranked, and removing them can actually be a bad idea.
Changing these pages can be a much better option, especially if there are lots of people linking to the page. Other pages may be easier to remove if they are unpopular and don’t have much traffic – but again, sometimes a re-write of old content can be faster than writing all new content.
And of course if you remove pages or update any URLs, be sure to include a 301 (permanent) redirect so you don’t lose any traffic or the benefit of incoming links.
Step 3: Design Changes and Graphics Upgrades (Paint)
Once you have clean, fast code and solid content, making your site look sleek and professional will be a great way to improve your presentation. Even if your business already has a logo and a color scheme, it won’t hurt to improve it by altering a tone or curve of a line. Many businesses have found that subtle changes to their logo and color scheme have made a positive impact to their company images.
More importantly, consider that the actual website may need to be redesigned. It’s not that hard to move content over to a new website, and doing this is a perfect opportunity to clean up code and weed out bad content. If the logistics are worked through prior to design (which is good practice), then the whole process should work smoothly from one point to the other, with limited double handling.
Another bonus of moving your old content over to a new site is that your on-page SEO can be completely checked out and analyzed a page at a time. There’s no contesting that the face of SEO and SEM are changing, but keeping things tidy will mean that as things shift, you know where you stand.
Step 4: Cultivate the Proud and Outspoken Worker
I’m adding this section in because I think it’s important to point out the shift in my own thinking. Technically, I’m a worker and once I’m done with my tasks on the Junk, I walk away to my next project. In theory, my relationship with the boat and its owner should end there.
In reality, I am proud of the work that I have done on this boat, and the result will be beautiful when she’s completely finished. This not only makes me happy, but also the owner is going to be pleased with how much effort I’ve put into fixing her up. I’ve taken on a personal interest, and I’ve put more effort into working on her because of it.
Months from now, when someone talks to me about wanting to buy a boat, I will immediately tell them I know of an amazing ship for sale – I’m now a free salesman. I’ll be proud to tell people, “See that boat, I worked on her, isn’t she a beauty?” and I’ll be advertising at no cost or request.
If you’re going to get someone to do any work for you, find someone that’s interested who has an appreciation for your business. They will put in more effort, they will keep giving you more than you paid them for, and you will end up with a finished product that you can all be proud of.
Step 5: Maintenance (Don’t Let Her Rot)
Regardless of how much work goes into your site, there needs to be constant content added and upgrades done when necessary. Someone needs to be keeping an eye on it and flagging when things are falling behind. For example, it is good practice to organize an editorial calendar, to make sure that new content is actually making it online.
Building a relationship with a marketing company should mean that you have someone to take care of all these aspects, who can continue working on them without you needing to brief them over and over. Having someone working for you that already has exposure to your business and the website you’re running can be a huge help, and can reduce running costs later on.
Find someone that works both with and for you, and nurture that relationship. You might be surprised at the dedication people give when caring about a project. Personally, I know without a doubt that if I get a phone call a year from now asking me to come and work on a particular boat again, I’ll be saying, “Yes!” as I’m running out the door.
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