📌 Must-Have Website Update Schedule 📅
Your website is your digital real estate and a critical business piece. And after spending tons of money on getting your website running, things went wrong, and you don’t know how to maintain it. In this episode, Hafsa Rana takes the time to share her insights on how you can have low-stress, easy maintenance and an updated website to help attract clients. Her in-depth knowledge of social media allows her to explain how important your website is in building trust and connection with people to help scale your business. Don’t miss this episode, as Hafsa brought some bags of gold for you! Tune in and create an amazing website that is consistently updated and reflects where you are in your business today!
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It is a free resource guide about the 6 Prerequisites for A Successful Website.
https://www.happilyhafsa.com/contact-2/
https://happilyhafsa.lpages.co/digitalbranding/
https://www.socialsalesmachine.com/hyperdrive
https://www.facebook.com/groups/6.figure.strategy
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📌 Must-Have Website Update Schedule 📅
You spent tons and tons of money to finally get your website off and running, and all of a sudden, everything keeps going wrong. Your links are breaking. You're updating your offers and you keep forgetting to update them on that page of your website. If you are finding these always an afterthought and you wished you had an easy button to maintain your website, that's what I have for you here, so you're in the perfect place. In this episode, we're going to talk through the cadence and schedule for how to maintain your website in a super easy, low-stress, and easy-to-check-the-box way so that you can have a nice website that's always updated, maintained, look super legit and professional, and can help you attract more clients and customers your way. Let's do this
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Welcome to the site schedule, my beautiful friends. I am so excited to be here talking to you about how to create an amazing website that is consistently updated and reflects where you are in your business. It also has all the little things that you need to be considering that sometimes it can be hard to keep track of between doing all the other things you do in your business.
This is going to be focused on what you need to be doing to keep your website current and effective. At the end of this, we're also going to be talking about a couple of things in terms of legalities that you need to be well aware of. We are going to take it step by step. Let's dive right in. Before we do that, let's talk about who I am. My name is Hafsa. I help entrepreneurs and small businesses nail their tech and build incredible digital branding, whether it's their website, social media, content marketing or strategy, so they can focus on growing the business of their dreams.
When I'm not working, I am chasing my three boys and taking care of my plant babies. We are at about 190 plants and counting in our house. It's driving my husband crazy and shopping on the Target app while watching The Office because who has time to actually go to Target in the era of COVID? If you would like to learn more about me, you can find me at HappilyHafsa.com or find me on Instagram, which is where I hang out a lot @HappilyHafsa.
Let's dive right into this presentation. What we're going to be covering is the importance of having a current website, why that should be even something you need to be considering, the weekly updates that you need to be working and making on your website, the monthly and quarterly updates, and then we're going to wrap up with the annual updates. Let's talk about why it's so important to have a current website.
This takes me back to something I always talk to entrepreneurs about, especially since I started as a blogger and a creator. A lot of times, we would talk about why you even need a website. If you have an Etsy store, why do you need a website? The reality is that you need a website because your website is the most important piece of digital real estate that you own. No one else owns it. No one else gets to decide what algorithm is working on it.
Mark Zuckerberg can't show up one day and shut down your website. There's nothing controlling how people experience your website except for you. You get to decide. This is why it is your real estate. This is your space. You get to decide your user experience. You get to decide what content your people see when they visit you. You get to decide what to highlight and what not to highlight. There's no algorithm. There's no one else controlling it, especially if you have a self-hosted WordPress website, which is what I recommend to most people. You own the space. You can pack it up and take it anywhere else you want.
If you want to change hosting providers, you can pack up your website and put it on a different hosting account. You are able to take your actual website. One of my biggest issues with services like Wix is that you can't pack up your Wix website and take it anywhere else with you. I'm totally digressing here, but if you're considering Wix as a website platform, don't do it. I transferred a client over from Wix to WordPress, and it was a nightmare. I can't even tell you. It was brutal.
All that to say, your website belongs to you. In most cases, you can take it wherever you want to take it. You can change things however you want to change them. You have unlimited possibilities in terms of what you can and cannot do with it. It is literally the only place on the internet that you own. No one else gets to decide how your website works except for you. Because it's the most important piece of digital real estate that you own, it is so important to keep it current.
I always laugh when I go to some Insta personalities' websites. They have a hugely successful Instagram account. They have many thousands of followers, and their Instagram stories are up to date as of the last minute. When I go to their website, on the footer, it says, "Copyright 2006." They haven't updated it. In places like Instagram, Twitter and our Facebook pages, people are seeing them live. We're always invested in them because we're getting responses. We invest so much time and energy into them.
It's like taking care of someone else's house. You're doing so much to make sure that Mark Zuckerberg keeps all these people on his platform for longer. You create content for them there, but then you come to your own house and you haven't changed your bed sheets in the last six years. Your kitchen is full of dishes. Your grass hasn't been mowed. You were so busy taking care of someone else's house that you didn't take care of your own.
Immediate Connection
This is why taking care of your website is so important, especially because it has three key purposes. Number one is your website allows you to connect with your visitor and tell them how you can help solve a problem for them. It's that immediate connection. It is that first instance of selling to them or getting them warmed up to even look at your products. Your website can introduce someone new to you and your brand and build trust.
I find that if I'm looking into purchasing a product, especially I went to Shure's website when I wanted to buy this SM7B microphone. I looked at all their videos. I read all their reviews. I did all that stuff because I wanted to connect with them. Had I gone to Shure's website to look up this mic and there was one article from 2006 being like, "This mic is great," not talking about what other products they have and offering a comparison, and talking about how it ranks against comparable products, etc., I wouldn't have bought the mic.
You can watch all the YouTube videos about other people's products but unless they themselves are talking about it and telling you about it, you don't get that like, know and trust factor. This is why your website is so important. It builds that connection. It builds that trust that's going to lead to people buying from you. Whether you're a product service, content creator or whatever it is you do, your website is so important.
Finally, your website allows you to make sales. You can sell stuff on your website. If you're an eCommerce product, you can sell services. You can integrate different payment portals or whatever it is that your website allows you to sell. Your website needs to be current and updated to accomplish any or all three of the purposes. You won't be able to sell from your website if it's not current because you might have legal issues with selling if you don't have a current privacy policy, for example.
You may not be able to sell from your website because people aren't willing to buy from you because you haven't built that trust with them by having a sleek, updated website. If your website is something that you threw together just to say that you had a website and it doesn't help you connect with your visitor or it doesn't describe what it is that you do or how you solve a problem for them, they're not even going to want to hang out. They're going to bounce as soon as they can. This is why keeping your website current and updated is so important.
Website Needs To Be Updated
Enough about why. I think I've sold you, I hope. We all know and we're all on the same page that the website needs to be updated, but one thing that we hardly ever talk about is the how. What's the how of it? Your site update schedule needs to be consistent. You need to be doing this consistently. You can't just build a website and then forget about it, and it needs to be sustainable. It's something that you can be like, "I can do this." Sometimes when you're starting, you're like, "This feels a lot like weekly, monthly, and quarterly updates. This woman is driving me crazy," and you don't even know me very well yet.
You can't just build a website and then forget about it; it needs to be sustainable.
What I want to say is you need to look at your website, and this always helps me too. You need to look at your website as a living, breathing entity. For example, you need to look at this website like my beautiful little plant over here. I potted this and it's beautiful, but if I don't water it, it's going to die. I need to water it weekly. That's the weekly update. If I don't get rid of all the dead leaves and stuff, it's going to stop growing. It's going to start looking scraggly. That's my monthly update.
Every quarter I need to re-pot it because as the roots grow and get bigger, it's going to need more space to flourish. That's my quarterly update. Every year, I need to change the soil or change the spot if it gets too big and put it in a different space that accommodates it. That's the annual update.
I could pot this plant and leave it here, not water it, not re-pot it or not get rid of the dead leaves, and it would probably end up looking like an ugly mess on my desk by the end of the year. That's what ends up happening to a lot of people's websites. They don't look at them as living, breathing entities. They don't do weekly, monthly, quarterly, or even annual updates. That wear shows.
The more you care for your website, the more it will flourish and the better ROI you're going to get in terms of your customers’ response. Don't take my word for it. This is something you need to test out yourself, and you will see the difference when you implement these strategies. You'll see a difference in one quarter of doing this. You just have to do it for three months and you'll see the difference. You don't have to take my word. Just try it.
There are three ways to start updating your website on a regular schedule. If you haven't been doing this and you're not sure how to get it done, first, I created a site update schedule checklist. You can download that. It's going to be with this presentation. This checklist is going to allow you to check off the boxes. You can put it on your desk, hang it on a wall, save it on your desktop, or however you do that thing. I like to print things out and do the actual check. That feels so good. It's a fillable document. You can fill it in on Adobe if you have Acrobat.
Secondly, I want you to schedule time in your calendar now. After this presentation, I want you to go into your calendar. The first day of every month, the first weekend of every month, Monday or whatever works for you. Everyone has a different system, but schedule the time in your calendar now to do these updates. Finally, have an accountability buddy. I have a peer-led mastermind that I'm in. We all hold each other accountable to go through these things. Every month we'll be like, "Did you guys do your website updates?" Someone else is going to be taking a peek, so it keeps you doing this stuff. I would definitely recommend doing that.
Everyone has a different system, but schedule the time in your calendar now to do these updates.
Remember that people will not consciously notice the updates that you do. You're not going to get emails from people being like, “I noticed you updated your website.” You're not going to get retweets and pins on your website for keeping it current. It's like a thankless job from that perspective, but your audience will notice it if you don't update it.
If your website is not current, your people will notice it. It will take away from your know, like and trust factors. It will impact your branding in ways you don't even realize because people are going to come in and see that footer that still says, “Copyright 2019,” and be like, “This person hasn't updated their website.” Also, from a legal perspective, you want to make sure that you're protecting yourself and your brand. Having an updated website can do that for you.
Back-Up Your Website And Store It Offsite
Let's talk about the weekly updates. Here are a few key website updates that you need to do on a weekly basis. One of the most important weekly updates that you can do is to back up your website and store it offsite. You can do this in many different ways. If you have a WordPress website, there is a plugin called Back Up UpdraftPlus that you can use. There is an all-in-one migration plugin. If you have been hosting through a company like SiteGround, it offers you regular backups and you can restore those backups. There are a ton of options.
Make sure you're backing up your site and storing at least a copy every week offsite. You can store it on Google Drive, your computer, or a hard drive. Many times, technology can shock and astound us. It doesn't matter what happens. You have a backup of your website that is relatively recent. Make it a habit to back up your website and store it offsite. Every week, you can write over the last week's copy and put, "Update it," but definitely have a weekly backup of your website. It is so important.
I can't tell you the number of clients I've had who came to me in tears because they lost a hundred blog posts because they weren't backing up their website and their host didn't have a proper copy. The last backup they had was from two years ago. They restored the backup, but then they lost a bunch of content and all the SEO juice that came from that content. Back up your website weekly. This is especially important if you are a content creator and you're uploading content on your website on a regular basis. Back up your website
The second thing you need to do is to go through and make sure that all your pages are loading properly and that there are no broken links or 301 or 404 errors. If you're on WordPress, there are some plugins that will check it for you. On other services like Squarespace, there are also plugins that allow you to do this, but you can go manually through each page. I use the incognito window on my computer. That way, there are no cookies or anything that's impacting my experience. I get to see the website as it would look to someone who is completely going there for the first time. There's no memory of how the website works.
I then try and actually check it on different devices like on my phone, my iPad or my computer, and even use different browsers. Instead of using Chrome, use Brave, Safari, Microsoft Edge, or whatever. Make sure your website is loading properly. If you are getting 301 or 404 errors, it's important to set up a redirection. If you used to have a certain page and now it's moved, or your website used to be on Wix and now it's on WordPress or something like that, make sure you're setting up proper 301 and 404 redirect errors or redirection.
I use RankMath for my SEO and it is amazing. They even offer you a redirection system built in and it's phenomenal. I love it. I used to use Yoast. I'm not sure if it offers redirection, but I primarily work with WordPress websites, so I can speak knowledgeably about that, but all platforms offer redirection opportunities. You just need to figure out how your platform works. The goal here isn't that WordPress is better than Squarespace or whatever. The goal is that you're making sure that all your pages are loading properly and that there are no broken links and 301 or 404 errors.
The next thing to check is if all your forms are submitting properly. This is also very important. I would test out my forms every week to make sure that I'm actually getting those emails. There have been so many times when for some reason, my forms weren't working. I wouldn't have realized it if I wasn't checking my forms every week. Make sure you check all your forms and that they're submitted properly. Make sure you review all the comments on those blog posts, form submissions, and remove all the spam. I can't tell you the number of bot comments I get. Make sure you delete all of those.
Also, especially if you're a blogger, remember you're responding to those comments ads through your engagement. It helps Google see your content as valuable, so you get a bit of an ROI. If you have comments that people are leaving on your website, make sure you respond to them and engage with them because that gives you another opportunity to connect with them.
If you have comments that people are leaving on your website, make sure you respond to them and engage with them because that gives you another opportunity to connect with your people.
This next one is important, and a lot of people don't do this. If you don't do it at all, you don't have to do this weekly. Do it every other week. Do it once a month, like put it in the monthly checklist, but add at least one new piece of content for content marketing purposes. Google loves to see websites that are current, which means that if you are regularly adding content to your website, you are much more likely to show up in organic searches.
You can boost that return a hundred times over by doing some basic keyword research and being very niche specific in what kind of content you are creating. Adding those blog posts is going to help you start getting seen in organic search results, which can have such a massive benefit for your website, your business or your bottom line. More people are going to start finding you without you needing to put all that work into Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Clubhouse. I get tired just thinking of all the platforms we're supposed to be on.
Adding new content is always such a great way to beef up your website. It’s also helpful for your audience because they're seeing that you're active, you're current, and you're adding content. There are no downsides to it, minus the fact that it does take some time and effort. If you can do it weekly, at least do it every other week. If you can do it every other week, try to do it at least once a month, and then you'll get twelve pieces of fresh content on your website.
The last thing I want to say, and this is specific to WordPress, is if you are going to be updating your themes and your plugins often say, “Update available,” for weekly updates, I will only do updates that are security related. That means that recently a lot of page builders found that there were security issues with those builders and their sites were getting hacked, so they released a security patch. When it tells you there's an update, it actually tells you what the update is about.
Only update your theme and core plugins weekly if it's security related. Otherwise, I wait to do this monthly because a lot of times, updates on plugins and themes, if you do it immediately, there are some technical errors. There are still some bugs around, and it can make your website stop working. Whereas if you wait a little bit, they resolve all the bugs, other people update it, and they figure out what's not working, so you are less likely to face difficulties with your website. I only do updates of my plugins and themes monthly unless it's security related, then I do it in my weekly update.
Next up are the monthly updates. There are a few key updates on your website that you need to do on a monthly basis. We were talking about updating your theme and your core plugins. All your core plugins and your theme should be updated on a monthly basis so that you're not missing new features or new things. A lot of times, WordPress automatically updates. You want to make sure that your theme remains compatible. This is true for Squarespace and other stuff too. This is important. On Squarespace, this is not as much of an issue. The update gets pushed out naturally. You don't have to worry about it.
Review Analytics Monthly
This next one is important. Review your analytics monthly. It’s a key thing. You can set up analytics on your website through something like Google Analytics. This is what I use. I actually have a cool dashboard that I created for my clients, where we go in and we set up your Google Analytics, we set up your Google search console, and we connect you to this custom dashboard, which gives you the most important things that you need to know about your website and how it's performing. You can check it out at HappilyHafsa.com/analytics.
Review your analytics monthly. That's the key thing, and you can set up analytics on your website through something like Google Analytics.
A few things to consider when you are looking at your website analytics is which sites refer the most traffic to you. This will tell you whether all the time you're spending on Facebook is worth it. If you had a partner that you worked with, this will tell you if they were good or if they were terrible, or you paid $1,000 for an influencer to share your product on her website, and you got two clicks back. That wasn't an effective campaign.
Which sites refer the most traffic to you? Where is your audience located? Are they local? If they're local, then you know that setting up things like Google My Business and things like that is going to be helpful. Are they more based on the specific country? You can tailor your content specifically to that. Are they global? Knowing where your people are can have a positive impact on your content marketing strategy. Are they using your website on a computer or mobile?
As of 2020, we've found that over 50% of website traffic is mobile based. Understanding how your audience is using your website is going to help you understand where you need to focus your optimization efforts. Is your website optimized for mobile? Are you showing up on the phone as well as you do on a desktop? If you're not, maybe it's time to mobile optimize your site, especially if you're seeing that 70% of your traffic is coming from mobile. It's also important to know what your best and worst-performing posts are.
For your best ones, you can add more value to them. For your worst ones, you can work on improving them or see if maybe that's not the content that people are looking at you for information on. Check out the custom dashboard at HappilyHafsa.com/analytics. It is incredible. Every person I've set it up for has been blown away by it because it gives you all these things you need to know in a very easy-to-understand way. You're not sifting through the many pages of Google Analytics like the actual Google console and being like, "What is this?"
The next monthly update that you need to do is you need to run a security scan to make sure there's no malware on your site. There are lots of ways to do this. Most hosting providers offer you the chance to run a security scan. With things like Squarespace and all these other platforms, you don't need to worry about this as much because you're on their actual hosting. You don't have to worry about this.
Clean And Secure
If you are on WordPress or using another website that's self-hosted, make sure that there is no malware on your website and that your website is clean and secure. If your website is vulnerable in some way, a lot of times, people will get a warning when they're clicking on your link like, "This website does not seem safe." You want to make sure that you are not getting those warnings.
If your website is vulnerable in some way, people will often get a warning when clicking on your link because the website does not seem safe.
Finally, you want to review all your plugins, this is specific to WordPress, and remove any unused ones to free up space because those can take up a lot of space. Especially with the Google core web vitals update, you want to make sure your website is as lean and as fast as possible because Google is going to start looking at your site's speed as a big factor in your showing up in organic searches.
I hope this made sense. Update your theme in core plugins every month. Review your analytics because analytics can be such an important part of creating an effective strategy for your business. Run a security scan to make sure there's no malware on your website. Review all your plugins and remove any of the ones that you don't use anymore. Also, if you are not doing the weekly content creation, I would at least, at minimum, do a monthly blog post so that you're continuing to add SEO juice to your website.
One thing I want to talk about when it comes to monthly updates, months are a good time to stop and check in. Every new month is a new beginning. What I always encourage my clients to do is review their goals every month. What is the conversion goal of your website? You can figure out your conversion goal for your website by looking at the ultimate purpose of your website. Is it to get someone to opt into your lead magnet? Is it for someone to buy your product? Is it for someone to click on a blog post or share a blog post?
Every website has a different conversion goal. Are people actually opting into your lead magnet? Are they purchasing your small offer and entering your funnel? Are they booking discovery calls if you're a service provider? Look at what your conversion goal is and see how successful your website is in getting you that conversion rate optimization.
Tweak your language to optimize it to get that better return. Try and do A/B testing on a month-to-month basis to see if any particular language lands better with people. Reviewing your goals and then tracking your progress is an important way of seeing whether your website works for your business as it should.
The second thing is to review your offers. Is your offer page current? I can't tell you the number of times I go on somebody's website and they're pitching an offer. I'm not talking about small businesses. I'm talking about massive businesses with a team of people and their offer page is still showing a course they launched three months ago, and the doors are closed for right now, but it's still showing up on their website.
Make sure that your offer page is current and that it's showing what you are selling right now, which I can access now. Has any of the information or details about your offers changed? Are you currently launching or finished launching a product and that's showing up on the website? Make sure that everything looks current and that you're not promoting something that's no longer available or not promoting something that is currently available. You want to make sure that your offers are all current.
Finally, review your links. Make sure that all the links on your website are working as they should. Are there any broken links? A lot of times, I use lead pages as my landing page tool, and lots of times, I'll have pages linking to my lead pages, but that offer is no longer available or some things have changed. Make sure that you're updating those links regularly. A monthly basis is a good time to schedule those.
Review your links. Ensure all the links on your website are working as they should.
The next is the quarterly updates. These are every quarter. We're coming up to quarter two. I'm going to be scheduling time to do these quarterly updates on my website sometime. Do an overall site review. A quarter is a good time to benchmark what worked in the last three months and what didn't work. Look at your website and see what can be improved. Is everything working as it should? Are you seeing declining traffic? Are you seeing a high bounce rate? People are landing on your homepage and leaving from there. They're not going anywhere else on your website.
How are things going? Are all your images in graphics up to date and seasonally accurate? You don't want to be showing you playing with snowballs in the middle of July. It looks odd. You want to make sure that all your images and graphics are super up-to-date and seasonally accurate. You're not talking about Christmas in September. You're not talking about Valentine's Day around December and things like that. Do you have any evergreen content that can be updated and improved? This can be your blog posts that are doing well, get normal SEO hits, and do well through Pinterest. Is there any way you can add to those blog posts to make them even more useful?
Setting Up Proper 301 And 404 Redirect Errors
Are you running an SEO plugin? I recommend Rank Math, but make sure you're reviewing your meta titles, meta descriptions, and image descriptions for your media library. Clean up your media library. Make sure there are no images that you are not currently using in there or old images. Sometimes when we're testing out logos, we upload a thousand different sizes.
Only keep the one that you're actually using and get rid of the other ones. Set up at least one automated funnel to lead magnet, a pocket offer, a tiny offer, or whatever they call it. You're getting some passive income coming in. Also, people who have bought from you and seen how amazing you are, are much more likely to buy from you again.
Setting up those automated funnels can be cool. Whether it's to a lead magnet or a tiny offer, you're getting that traffic converting. Every quarter is a great time to look at what you currently have and then think about what you should have or what you can have going forward. There's one thing I want to point out about meta titles and meta descriptions.
I can't cover it in a presentation that's not about SEO, but your SEO needs to be on point. There are a ton of courses out there that do a basic SEO dive. There are some that go in-depth about what you can. If you'd like to learn more, drop me an email or a DM on Instagram, and I'll share my favorite ones with you.
If you have a website, you need to do the basic minimum in optimizing it for search engines so that you're getting organic traffic because that takes away a lot of work on your part. You are not having to push your website out on Instagram, Facebook, and all these social media platforms. You're not spending hours pinning stuff on Pinterest. You are creating content, and then Google, Bing, Yahoo, and all these other search engines are doing the work for you.
If you have a website, SEO is something that you need to at least understand the basics of. It can be such a powerful way of outsourcing your work. It’s the same thing with creating these automated funnels. It's so important to know how these work and have something set up on your website because you increase your conversions. You can get people on your email list and then build these amazing relationships with them with your emails. There's so much to talk about and not enough time.
We are coming up to the end of this presentation and we are going to wrap up with the annual updates, but this is also some of the most important stuff that we're going to be talking about. I'm going to ask you to continue giving me your attention for the next few minutes and then we're going to wrap up. In terms of your annual updates, these are really important. You need to be doing this every single year. Number one is to test the site using different computers and a VPN connection. You can purchase a VPN service. I use ExpressVPN.
You need to make sure that your site is showing up as it should across different locations in the world. You want to make sure your website looks the same to a person accessing it in Toronto as it does to someone in London, UK. Does it show properly across the board? If not, then there are ways you can tweak it. You can talk to your hosting provider. You can talk to your web designer, but you want to make sure that it is showing up properly.
This isn't something you have to do all the time. This is a once-in-a-year thing, but sometimes websites will show up differently and there are ways to fix it. You want to make sure that you're staying on top of that. Review all your calls to action and major headlines. Your content and your offers are going to shift over time. There's nothing wrong with that. Reviewing your calls to action and major headlines will help you see if your website is working effectively for the business you have now, not the business you had a year ago.
Reviewing your calls to action and major headlines helps you see if your website is working effectively for your business today, not the business you had a year ago.
Scheduling this kind of review is so important in keeping your website current. This is something a lot of people miss. Update the copyright date in your website footer. Please don't forget to do this. This is so important. Make sure that your website footer has updated copyright year. Don't forget to do this because that is the biggest, most glaring error that most people immediately see when they're on somebody's website.
Review your privacy policy, terms of service, and disclaimer policies. Make sure that you update the date on them annually after you've reviewed them so that it reflects that they are current. This is so important to protect you. There are people who lose their Facebook ads accounts because the websites to which they were sending people don't have privacy policies. It is illegal not to have a privacy policy on your website. Make sure you have a privacy policy. Make sure you have terms of service page. Make sure you have disclaimer policies.
Make sure that no matter where you are in the world, you're running a cookies consent bar. Ever since GDPR, every website needs to have a cookie consent bar. There are a ton of plugins out there that will allow you to do this. Squarespace has its own module allowing you to do this. You need to have a cookies consent bar. These are those little annoying popups that say, “Collect your cookies.” You need to have cookies consent if you're running anything like Google Ads, Facebook ads, or Google Analytics. Make sure you have a cookies consent bar.
Make sure that your website is meeting the minimum basic standard set forth by the WCAG, which is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. In the US, in the last few years, the number of lawsuits brought under the ADA, which is the Americans with Disability Act, have skyrocketed because people are not making their websites accessible and they're getting sued for it. You need to make sure that you are meeting the minimum basic standards set forth by WCAG. You can Google it. There is a ton of information out there about it.
Ensure that your website meets the minimum standard set forth by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
You want to protect yourself. There are mom bloggers who are getting sued under the ADA. There isn't any clear case law about it, so it's on a case-by-case basis, but by doing the basic minimum, you're at least protecting yourself and avoiding getting sued. I do believe that we need to be accessible. Accessibility should be a priority for all of us. We want to make sure that we're creating websites and Instagram accounts and other places that are accessible to people who are differently abled from us.
If it requires a little bit of effort on our part right now, but it means that someone can access our content and benefit from our services, then it is one million percent worth it. I would do it to protect ourselves from a legal perspective, but I would also do it because we want to be inclusive and open and allow everyone the opportunity to work with us. As a business, it works in our favor to be inclusive. As a human, it's something that should be a priority for all of us.
That is it. Thank you so much for hanging out with me. I enjoyed doing this presentation. I hope you walk away from this and learn something you didn't know. I hope that this helps you keep your websites up to date and current. If you want to learn more about what I do and connect with me on this platform, you can visit me at HappilyHafsa.com/digitalbranding.
If you're specifically interested in websites, social media strategies, specifically Instagram, and content marketing, or if you want to get a peek at what I do in general, you can find me at HappilyHafsa.com. I share a lot of content there with recipes and stuff for mom entrepreneurs and moms, in general, looking to live a more fulfilling life and find time for themselves as they are rocking motherhood. I share a lot of stuff around that. Thank you again for spending this time with me. I'm happy that I got to hang out with you and share all this information. I cannot wait to see the amazing things that all of you do with what I've shared with you here. Have a wonderful day, my friends.
Important Links
@HappilyHafsa - Instagram
About Hafsa Rana
Hafsa helps entrepreneurs and small businesses nail their tech so they can focus on building and growing their dream business and make money on their own terms. With her background in website design, digital content marketing, and her in-depth knowledge of social media and specifically Instagram strategy, she can help you address the tech challenges you most commonly face in getting started or scaling with your business. When she is not working, she is chasing after her 3 boys, taking care of her plant babies, and watching The Office while shopping the Target app.