Social Media Tasks and To Dos - 17 Steps for Better SEO

May 28

If it’s a rainy day and you are looking for something to do … turn on the fire and put your socks on, it’s time to go to work!

I don’t know about you, but a rainy day can suck the energy and creativity right out of me. And living on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, there are more rainy days than I might like!

So I’ve come up with a list of digital housekeeping tasks that I can turn to when the weather is gloomy. That way, I can stay productive even when my creativity reserves are low. Here are some ideas for things you can do to improve your SEO and boost engagement on social media.

Table of Contents Show

Website

Check your plugins

Check your plugins, connections, widgets and zaps to ensure they are all up to date. Out-of-date connections could be slowing down your site, so make sure all your updates are installed. Then do an audit of your site to be sure that nothing got broken after the update.

Update software versions

Update your web theme and software versions for WordPress or Squarespace or whatever website builder you are using. While you are at it, update Microsoft, your apps and anything else that might affect your productivity.

One of the things I love most about Squarespace is that there are no plugins to manage! Woot!

Improve your SEO

Add descriptions, tags and categories to your blog posts. Tagging and categorizing your blog will make it easier for your readers to find what they want. Make sure your blog categories are Google-friendly and use keywords that you want to be ranking for. For example, instead of using a category like “beginner” make sure you are using “tips for new runners” or “easy to make at home recipes” or whatever is appropriate for your industry. Clear categories that include keywords will improve your SEO.

Compress images that are slowing down your website. I use Canva but there are lots of easy to use, free tools on line like TinyPNG. Squarespace recommends images be a maximum of 500 KB for fastest loading. It’s worth sacrificing image quality for page speed (even if you are a photographer and these are your very best shots!), because we humans are not patient! Research shows users will wait no more than 3 seconds for a website to load before abandoning their search.

Rename images with clear file names and add descriptions (alt text) as it will help you win in SEO. Plus it makes your site much more accessible for your audience. If you are posting an image of a car for example, make sure the image name is not IMG15863; it should be 2021 Red Toyota Prius (or in my case 1997 Grey Dodge Truck).

Optimize your website speed by looking for ways to improve it. GTmetrix offers a free tool and will give you recommendations for areas you score low in.

Check for dead links on your site that could be affecting your SEO (and more importantly your user experience) using Dead Link Checker.

Improve your User Experience

Test your contact forms … yes, even if you have tested them before. Software updates and little internet gremlins can break them. It is one of the first things I review with new clients as good working forms are critical for lead generation.

Check for typos, there’s usually one lurking somewhere no matter how many times you check. I use Grammarly for this. You may need to do a secondary check for the proper spelling of words like favour, neighbour, flavour, colour (proud Canadian here!).

While you are at it, why not do a content review? Ask yourself, does that still sound as good as when you wrote it? Do some things need to be updated to keep with the times? Are you writing on brand using your brand voice? Is there anything that can be deleted?

Test your site for mobile responsiveness. Ask a friend to give it a once over too.

That should keep you busy all day, but if you still have some time …

Social Media Profiles

Rainy days are a great time to make sure your social media presence is bright and shiny. Here are some activities to consider:

Profiles

Clean up your profiles. Make sure profile pictures are consistent across all of your platforms. Check your business description to make sure it is clear, fill out your “about” information and check emails and phone numbers.

Have a look at your competitors’ profiles. It’s a good time to have a look at their pages to see what they are posting about, what new hashtags they are using, how their audience is interacting with them. It might give you some insights into improvements you can make on your own business.

Engage your audience

Check your posts and click on to see who has ‘liked’ them. Invite the people who have liked your post but not your page, to like your page. It might not result in anything, but hey, it’s worth a try. PS - have you liked my Facebook page?

Unfollow people that you don’t really engage with. It’s good to keep your following and liked lists tight so that you can spend time engaging with the people who are super into your content instead of scrolling past content that isn’t relevant to you.

Engage. This isn’t a rainy day job, it’s an every day job. Engagement takes time and if you are finding it overwhelming, it might be time to think about getting some social media help. Share some love with likes and loves on all your platforms, but more importantly, comment! Be generous with your engagement and it will be returned to you!

Follow new people. Look for people that you wish you engage with you, leaders in your field, influencers, local business owners and follow them. Sometimes following people can alert them to your presence and if they find you relevant to the whatever topic they’re currently working on, they will often give you a follow back. This expands your audience but also, curates it so that you can create a better ‘lookalike’ audience on ads.

Get creative

Level up your creativity. Look for pages, people, hashtags and comments that will push your creativity. Learn something new and relevant to your business. An example, Ronny Hermosa, a Canva staffer, recently posted a great Give them a Follow video on YouTube with shout outs to some new Instagrammers he was following. I checked them out and followed them too - now my feed is full of some great, creative design ideas and with that new found creativity …

… when the sun comes out - I’ll be ready to put my umbrella away and shine on!