Your website is the most powerful tool your business can have. Websites create trust and credibility, enhance professionalism, establish relevance, grab attention, and of course, grow business.
If you’re like most business owners and bloggers, your website is essential to the way you do business, so it’s important to make it as powerful as possible.
Here are some great tips that will help you build a better website.
MOBILE-FRIENDLY EXPERIENCE
Did you know that more than 60 percent of internet users access online content through mobile devices? What does that mean for you? Your website has to not only be accessible on mobile devices but also respond to them. A website that does not deliver a mobile-friendly experience to users can be extremely exasperating. If your users find it difficult to contact you or read your content, they might end up abandoning your site.
UPDATED BUSINESS INFORMATION
Put your phone number, email address, physical address, business hours, etc., in very obvious spots, whether in the header, footer, or on a contact page in the main navigation. If your website visitors want to call you, place an order, or request more information, finding these should be easy.
MAKE IT LOOK GOOD
Your website needs to look good – it needs to look like it was built by a professional who knows what they’re doing. And here’s why: potential customers view your website to determine your credibility, expertise, and authority.
Consider this…if you were going to a job interview for a high-paying position, would you show up in business attire or would you show up looking like you just rolled out of bed? The business attire is a much better option as I’m sure you’d agree.
The same is true of your website! It will most likely be the first impression potential customers have of your company. If your site looks like it hasn’t been redesigned since the 90s, or it looks unprofessional, customers will question the legitimacy of your business and move on to your competition. You have to take advantage of the latest design trends, make good use of colors and images, and ensure that the look and feel of the website match what you and your company are all about.
MAKE IT EASY TO FIND
Even the best website is useless if it can’t be found. That’s why SEO- Search Engine Optimization – is so critical to having an effective website.
A truly effective SEO can seem discouraging to most business owners because it requires a detailed strategy, constant analysis, and time. However, a good way to start is by adding some basic SEO elements that every website should have:
- Add an XML sitemap. This is a background file for search engines (not humans) that helps them easily understand the structure of your website. If you have a WordPress site, the Yoast plugin is a great SEO tool and it automatically generates an XML sitemap.
- Optimize images. How quickly a website loads play into Google’s rankings, and images with large file sizes can slow down your site. A good plugin for WordPress sites is WP Smush, which can reduce file sizes without reducing image quality.
- Remove broken links. Sites and pages with broken links do not make for quality content or a good user experience, which is what search engines want to see.
- Add a Privacy Policy and Terms of Use/Service. Google considers how legitimate and trustworthy a website is when considering ranking, and having these pages plays into this.
- Add Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions. This information, added to the back-end of your web pages, is often what appears on search engine results pages. This is not a direct ranking factor, but there is an indirect benefit – more visits to your site can improve your Click Through Rate (CTR), which is a ranking factor.
PROVIDE SOCIAL PROOF
Social Proof on a website is based around the psychology of following the crowd – the idea that if other people are doing it, it must be good! Show visitors that you’re not just some random company out there, you are a valuable provider of products or services used by many others.
Some good social proofing techniques include:
- Testimonials – Testimonials put a human face on the quality of your business. Make sure to use real customers and photos.
- Logos – Display logos of companies that have hired you or places you’ve been mentioned, such as other blogs or websites, radio, or TV.
If you have any questions at all, please feel free to ask in the comments below and we would be happy to help! Finally, if you are a small business owner struggling to figure out how to stay on top of the latest changes, strategies, tips, and tools in online marketing, we’d like to personally encourage you to contact us and let us put our best ideas to work for you.
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