All too often, business owners seem to believe that once they have launched their website they simply sit back and the money rolls in. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth. Just as with a brick and mortar building, regular maintenance must occur in order for your e-business to remain viable and competitive.

What follows is a list of 20 questions you need to ask about your website when considering its upgrading and maintenance schedule.

1. Is your site fully search engine compatible? Are all your pages being indexed by the major search engines?

The old axiom about business success being tied to “Location. Location. Location” is true for the Internet as well. There is no point in having a online store or site if people can’t locate it. You need to ensure that your website is as attractive to search engines as it is to human readers.

2. Do you track your visitor statistics on a regular basis? Do you use the information provided by your visitor statistics to improve your site?

One of the most common issues for many novice e-business owners is the inability to differentiate between their likes and dislikes and usability issues with that of their customers. It’s essential that you use a reputable and trusted system for gathering data on your website users and modifying your site as needed to better meet your customers’ needs.

3. Is your web site accessible to visually impaired visitors? Does it meet the international standards set down by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)?

As we move closer and closer to an ideal web standard, accessibility becomes a hotter and hotter ticket. Your web site needs to be accessible to all users.

4. Do you know which sites and search engines provide you with the most traffic? Do you use this information to improve your traffic further?

Again, reputable analytics can help determine how your target audience is finding you as well as what keywords they are using. Knowing this information can help you create a more focused and refined experience.

5. Do you track the source of all reported errors in your site statistics and fix them promptly?

Errors are not only frustrating to a user, but they make your website appear unprofessional. It’s important that you know what types of errors are occurring and correct them immediately. Errors can also effect search engine optimization.

6. Do you know which keywords your site was found for in the search engines? Have you conducted keyword research to determine what search terms your target markets are looking for so you can optimize for them?

Having a keyword theme and optimizing your pages for those keywords is critical to your page’s success. It’s imperative that you do a market analysis for your industry and demographic base and then create a search engine optimization plan to utilize the data in order to attract high quality users to your website thus increasing conversions.

7. Does your web site HTML code validate to W3 standards? Do you check for validation regularly?

With browsers moving towards standardization, it becomes more critical for pages to maintain current standards and best practices. Failing to do so can create a situation where your pages will not longer work or display properly as browsers upgrade.

8. Does your site contain zero broken links? Do you check for and fix broken links regularly?

Broken links are not annoying and unprofessional damaging your credibility but they can also affect your search engine optimization and placement.

9. Has your site been fully search engine optimized to integrate your target search terms into your Page Titles, META Tags and visible page text?

While META tags no longer play a large factor in search engine optimization, they are still critical in developing your over all site optimization theme. Page titles do remain critical. It’s important that you use the page title to inform both the human visitor and the search engine what can be found in the page content.

10. Have you created and submitted an XML sitemap to Google Sitemaps?
11. Have you created and submitted a sitemap to Yahoo Site Explorer?

Site maps are probably the number one simple thing you can do to increase how many of your pages are indexed by search engines. Site maps are coded maps to your site, which tell the search engine important information like file name, location, date created or modified and what priority it is relative to your site as a while.

12. Have you checked to see if your site meets Google's Webmaster Guidelines?

Google is now synonymous for using a search engine. Therefore, it’s essential that you understand and utilize Google guidelines and suggestions for best search engine placement.

13. Do you measure your visitor sign-ups and conversions on a regular basis? Do you tweak your landing page copy to improve the conversion rates?

If your goal is to make money or generate leads, it’s essential that you track and analyze your success. It’s equally essential to continually hone body copy and page elements to hit your target. Too often, business owners spend an exorbitant amount of time and money looking for outside ways of promoting their site and increase their conversions. However, if the content isn’t there you may see an increase in traffic but will unlikely see an increase in conversions.

14. Is your site navigation intuitive and are your visitors following the navigation paths you intended?

Again, reputable analytics lets a business owner understand how their site is actually being used. It’s often startling for a business owner to realize what they thoughtfully provided and believed to be a linear and progressive navigation is in fact not in use.

Unlike a printed book read from cover to cover, left to right, a website can be entered at any point. Therefore, navigation needs to be consistent and intuitive so that users always know where they are in relation to the site as a whole.

15. Do you encourage feedback from your site visitors and provide an obvious way for them to provide such feedback?

This is the least expensive market research you can conduct. Moreover, if you implement customer suggestions you will have the highest ROI. It’s critical that an e-business delivers what a customer wants not what you think they need.

16. Are there at least 250 words of text on your home page to satisfy search engines?

Index pages are extremely critical to your over all site search engine placement. While flash and images may be pretty, they do not appeal to search engines. The web although visual is textually driven and you need a minimum of 250 words to be indexed.

17. Does your site contain a visible, text-based site map to aid user navigation?

Just as site maps are for search engines, a site map for human readers can help users find what they need when they need it.

18. Do you have an ongoing link building campaign running to secure more incoming links to your site and improve your site's link popularity score?

As discussed in last week’s article, PageRank is tied up to your site’s link popularity. Therefore, you need to incorporate a link exchange with relevant websites to increase your PageRank and optimization opportunities.

19. Does your site have a high percentage of repeat visitors? Are the majority of your visitors staying on your site for more than a minute?

An important part of analytics is understanding your visitor trending. Bounce rates and visitor loyalties can help you refine your site to be better meet your customer’s needs. A satisfied customer is a repeat customer and more importantly a referring customer.

20. Do your search engine referrals and site traffic figures grow each month?

Search engines are constantly updated. New sites are being created. Old sites are being optimized. In order to remain competitive, you need to understand your current placement and work constantly towards improvement.

Your web site is an investment. As such, you need to nurture it and continually ensure that you remain competitive. Speak with your website development company about instituting a monthly maintenance plan to include analytics, reporting and most importantly a plan of action to ensure your site’s continued viability and success.