These days, business website owners need to consistently maintain and update their sites to successfully compete in their marketplace.
Improving your website is not a one-shot event. To effectively create and maintain a business website in 2020, you should have your website designer consider the following 5 critical factors:
Optimize Your Pages For Speed
Create valuable and relevant content for your audience
Implement targeted Calls-To-Action
Ensure Your Navigation Structure is User-Friendly
Use White Space Effectively
Optimize Your Pages For Speed
One of the most frustrating experiences for website visitors is waiting too long for a page to load. If a page takes more than a few seconds to appear, most users will leave. The term for measuring this is “bounce rate” and your objective should be to minimize this as best as possible.
Google offers a free tool for you to determine how fast your webpage loads as well as other information that your web design firm can work with you on to improve.
Create valuable and relevant content for your audience
Before writing ANY content for your website, it is critical to determine WHO you are writing for – in other words – know your audience.
Writing for an audience who does not find your content valuable and relevant to them is a waste of time and will only increase your bounce rate when they leave for another site.
Well-written, targeted content throughout the various pages of your site gives customers a reason to stick around, check out what you have to offer, and substantially increases the chances of successful conversions.
Another popular and useful form of content is blogging. It has become a crucial marketing tool for businesses, helping them to improve their site’s SEO and directly connect with their audience. A blog, in conjunction with social media marketing, are the most cost-effective ways to establish your brand further, as well as provide valuable and relevant information to prospective customers about your products and services.
Implement targeted Calls-to-Action
Calls-to-actions (CTA’s) enable you to quickly engage with your audience through a simple click of a button. Examples of CTA’s include downloadable eBooks, webinar signups, videos and discounted pricing or coupons.
Consider both the colors and the actual words you use for your buttons. The words should include a verb or an action word that compels the user to click to receive the valuable item that you are promising.
Once they identify your company as one that provides materials or information that they perceive as valuable, they will be more likely to research your site, products and services to see how else you can help them.
User- Friendly Navigation
It’s crucial for your visitors to find the information they were looking for when entering your website. If your site is complicated or confusing to navigate or has non-working links or buttons they will most definitely leave and look to your competitors.
Navigational menus should be located in plain sight (ideally at the top of the page and stationary when scrolling) and respond quickly. All internal and external links should lead to the correct pages/sites with clear, concise titles/headings.
Don’t forget to include pages that describe your background, experience, contact information and testimonials from your customers. All of these help build trust, credibility and (what Google refers to as) authority.
Use of White Space: Make Your Site Readable and User-Friendly
How many of us remember the old Yahoo search engine page that was wall-to-wall text and advertisements? Remember how that compared to the clean, white, simple search page of Google?
That’s because white space is essential to good design. White space makes your content more legible while also enabling the visitor to focus on the elements surrounding the text, such as headlines and images.
White space can also make your website feel open, fresh and modern. Having too much white space might be limiting as you have less real estate for information. The key is to find the balance between what is most important to communicate at the top (also known as “above the fold”) and surround that with some space to highlight your text and images.
I hope these tips have given you some ideas for improving your website. Be proactive and discuss them with your web designer to ensure you are maximizing the potential of your online presence to drive traffic, sales and revenue for your business.
