Ahhhhh. The sweet sights, sounds, and smells of spring. As the world outside gets a refresh, it’s the perfect time to do the same for your workspace. ‘Tis the season to declutter your desk, toss old coffee cups, and organize your files (in the cabinet and in the drive/desktop/cloud). Might as well add “spring clean website” to your list. We traditionally compare company websites to houses—the initial build is just the beginning. Maintenance is required forever. Lawyers: think of your website like your state bar licenses. Your license requires periodic work to be maintained. Studying new laws and precedents, keeping up with legal updates and compliance, and attending your required CLEs. Same with your website—it needs regular updates, maintenance, and optimization to keep up.
Technical SEO Tune-Up
While technical SEO does cover some of the backend work on your website, it also refers to on-page elements such as links, load speed, and site structure. To get a thorough read on website health, run a crawl on your site, export the data, and hunt down hidden issues that could be hurting your rankings and conversion. We like to use Screaming Frog, but there are tons of other SEO auditing tools out there to help.
Identify Orphan Pages
“Orphan” pages are live on your site and often indexed by Google but are inaccessible via your website. They have no internal links (under your domain) pointing back to them—a lone island amidst your digital archipelago.
- What to do:
- Run a crawl (and cross-check against your sitemap).
- Add links to the orphan pages where they makes the most sense.
- Remove outdated or irrelevant pages altogether, or implement redirects.
Uncover Broken Links
Dead links happen when a webpage is deleted, when a site migrates (like switching from HTTP to HTTPS), or when an external webpage disappears or breaks. Broken links beget bad user experiences.
- What to do:
- Run a crawl.
- For internal links, update the URL or set up a 301 redirect.
- For outbound links, replace or remove.
- Nifty tip: When linking internally, use relative URLs to avoid broken links during future migrations.
Audit Page Speed
Slow load time is the ultimate client deterrent. Data shows that web user bounce rates skyrocket with every extra second a page takes to load. Just because your site was loading like Road Runner last week doesn’t mean it is today. Make speed audits a habit.
- What to do:
- Use Google PageSpeed Insights to audit page speed.
- Identify the slowest pages and audit to diagnose issues.
- Compress images, streamline clunky code, remove unnecessary plug-ins, and optimize browser caching.
Content Clean-Up
Yep, even your content needs a second assessment. The good news is that unlike a retailer, you probably don’t have more than 30 active webpages on your site. A crawler can help you identify areas that need work, but manually reviewing on-page content can give you deeper UX insights.
Identify Thin Content & Low-Value Pages
“Thin content” doesn’t just refer to word count—it refers to originality, usefulness, subject matter depth…and, yes, low word count. Don’t worry about overhauling every page, just focus on your core service pages and any really low-value content you find.
- What to do:
- Audit your content sitewide and flag pages lacking.
- Edit and beef up thin content.
- Remove or rewrite duplicate content (or face the penalties!).
- Update blog articles and refresh their publish or last edited date.
- Remove altogether outdated or unnecessary pages
Update Your Images
Obviously you wouldn’t want images of old logos, long-gone staff, or social media icons for platforms that no longer exist. On the backend, review image metadata to ensure specifications are optimized and that image titles and descriptions follow best practices for accessibility.
- What to do:
- Replace old headshots, team photos, and other outdated images.
- Make sure all image metadata is optimized for SEO.
- Check for and remove defunct social media icons from headers and footers (RIP, Twitter bird).
- Ensure visuals align with your current branding and messaging.
Website Design
Why would web design need a “clean-up?” From a technical perspective, things break! Navigation, images, parallax scrolling, forms (yikes!). From an aesthetic perspective, your web design could be dating your entire digital identity. Business and marketing aesthetics evolve—Corporate Memphis, for example. Those oversized, colorful humanoid cartoons dominated web design in the 2010s. the sort of oversized colorful humanoid cartoon giants you see on the web, is a style choice endemic of the 2010s. And before that, there was corporate flat design (think OG Facebook). While you don’t need to spring-clean your website every year, you won’t want to wait too long between audits.
Test Your Nav
Menus, links, headers, and footers all break. It just happens. You’ll want to assess your website crawl, as well as manually test navigation effectiveness. The goal is a seamless, intuitive, accessible user experience (with no deadends).
- What to do:
- Click through your entire navigation menu—desktop and mobile.
- Test all links, buttons, and dropdowns.
- Fix broken links and anything outdated or irrelevant.
- Compare your navigation experience to a competitor’s and flag upgrades you can make to your own site.
Assess Aesthetics
When it comes to design, theme, and graphics, we’re always chasing the right balance of professionalism and personality (Nifty is quite personality-forward, if you haven’t noticed). If it looks like your website hasn’t been updated since 2012, potential clients might assume the same about your practice.
- What to do:
- Identify outdated web design trends and refresh where needed.
- Cross-compare with competitors in your market and beyond.
- Ensure fonts, colors, and layouts align with current branding (and align with one another).
- Scroll down each of your core pages and assess layout, white space, and visual experience. Redesign where visual appeal is lacking.
Add Accessibility Features
We don’t need to lecture lawyers about the importance of compliance, but we do have an obligation to remind you that it applies to your website accessibility too! Even small tweaks like alt text and more readable on-page text can make a big difference.
- What to do:
- Review and optimize image metadata (titles, alt text, and descriptions).
- Ensure proper heading structures (H1, H2, etc.) for readability and SEO.
- Audit page titles and meta descriptions for clarity and compliance with best practices.
- Check the readability of all on-page text—color contrast and funky font choices can make content harder to read.
Enhance Accessibility
Your website should be easy to navigate and accessible to all users. From image metadata to on-page structure, small tweaks can make a big difference.
- What to do:
- Review and optimize image metadata (titles, alt text, and descriptions).
- Ensure proper heading structures (H1, H2, etc.) for readability and SEO.
- Audit page titles and meta descriptions for clarity and compliance with best practices.
Need help knocking some of these tasks off your to-do list? We got you.
Hannah Bollman is Nifty’s talented and dynamic Content & Brand Manager. She develops compelling content across blogs, newsletters, social media, and ad campaigns, ensuring alignment with Nifty’s voice and mission. With a background in SEO, content marketing, and stand-up, Hannah brings a unique mix of creativity, strategy, and humor to everything she does. When she’s not shaping Nifty’s brand or growing visibility for legal clients, she’s on a run, on her bike, or enjoying a delicious falafel sammich.