With the way the professional world is these days, your business can’t afford to not have a website. Not only is it a great source for driving sales, but it’s also a point of credibility for your customers. It’s not uncommon for potential customers or clients to make a decision about a company based on the look of their website. If you feel that your site is lacking something and it’s holding you back, we have some ways you can improve your company’s site to drive more traffic and sales.
Have a Clear Call to Action
One thing to keep in mind when building your website is that you always have an end goal for your users. Whether it’s to call you to schedule an appointment, buy a product, or sign up for a newsletter, there should always be something for users to do. Have a clear task in mind that you would like your customers or readers to do with your website and convey that message. People who visit your website want to be told what to do because it’s much easier than trying to figure it out on their own. Come up with a clear call to action and make it easily accessible for those who come across your site.
Make Contact Information Easily Accessible
Making contact with potential customers, clients, or readers should be one of your top priorities with your website. This can come in the form of answering questions or scheduling a meeting, but driving engagement is a great way to earn the trust of those who come to your website. The most effective way to do this is by making your contact information easy to access. A contact page is a common practice, but having your phone number, email address, and physical address in the header or footer of your site is a great idea because users can access the information on every page they navigate to.
Add Optimized Images and Videos
A big part of keeping people on your website is user experience. A page that loads too slow is a great way to take an engaged user to someone ready to go somewhere else. Images and videos that you put on pages on your website can be incredibly beneficial as they make it more engaging. However, they can also slow your site from a sprint to a crawl. Add images that have been compressed without losing quality, add descriptive keywords to the alt text, and embed videos from YouTube rather than uploading them to your CMS.
Have an Easy-to-Type Domain
While having a short domain name for your website is important, you don’t need to get nearly as creative with it as you would a license plate. By this, we mean that you can still spell out a couple of words so it’s easy to remember the name of your site and type it in. Domains that get too long or complicated can be difficult for potential customers and clients to type in when they’re trying to find you. Remember that if you’re too hard to find, people will go look elsewhere. If you’re looking for ideas as to domains that are available and fit you, try working with a domain brokerage to find what’s best.
Mobile Responsiveness
No matter what industry you’re in, much of the traffic your site gets will be on a mobile device. If you have users coming to your website and it doesn’t fit on their smartphone screen, they’ll go find another website with the same products or information that does. Many platforms will automatically format your website based on how the desktop version is set up, but this isn’t always the case. Take into consideration how your site looks when it’s pulled up on a tablet or smartphone and make the necessary adjustments.
In addition to the user experience on a mobile device, a few years ago search engines started indexing the mobile version of websites rather than the desktop version. What this means for you is that you aren’t going to get any benefit out of creating a beautiful desktop website if the mobile version doesn’t have the same information.
Update Content Regularly
A website isn’t a “set it and forget it” part of operating your business. You’re going to have to continually update the content to make sure that it meets your current business operations, standards, services, and more. What’s more, search engines won’t regularly crawl your site if there isn’t anything new for them to index. This means that you’ll eventually have information that isn’t as relevant as others in your industry and your search results ranking will drop.
One of the best ways you can continually update content on your website is by putting together a content strategy and keeping a blog. This is an excellent way to keep your customers updated on what you’re doing, how the industry evolves, tips and tricks with products you sell, and more. You’re providing new material for search engines to index, but you’re also offering useful information for potential customers and clients.
