A Handy Guide To Making Your Website Work For You
It’s 2017 and that means if you’re a business owner or leader of an organization, you’re probably well aware of the vital role your company’s website design plays in your overall success. With the amount of internet users ever-increasing, your digital presence has virtually unlimited potential to reach your target audience, which ultimately increases sales. The main purpose of a website is to attract leads, convert sales, and build brand ambassadors out of your audience, and a well-designed one will do just that.
But it’s not a set-it-and-forget-it kind of thing; websites must be updated on a regular basis, examined for any issues, tracked, and analyzed. Plus, they need to be modified to reflect necessary marketing requirements.
Here are four website elements to stay on top of on a regular basis in order to keep it working for you:
- User Experience and Functionality
Because it’s really all about the user, you need to make sure your website provides a positive user experience. This means you need to know your analytics and actually click through your website frequently in order to make sure it’s functioning properly. Look for:
- Bounce rate-how many people leave your site after viewing only one page?
- Functionality-does everything work as it should?
- Is your contact information easy to get to and use for maps and google search?
- Does your menu structure make sense?
- Is your site responsive, meaning does it work on mobile devices, as well as desktop?
Analytical reports will tell you your bounce rate and other things, like page views and how many likes your blog post got on Facebook. This information is essential to seeing where adjustments need to be made. They can also help point out page errors or broken links, but good old fashioned clicking through yourself is a good habit to get into as well.
- Branding
Your website is your company’s face to the world, so it’s beyond important that you ensure the following elements are continuously met:
- Is your purpose or what you do clear?
- Does it resonate with the target audience?
- Is it scalable?
- Is it trustworthy/professional?
Make sure you’re putting your company’s best face forward by making your site professional, engaging, and informative. Nothing turns a viewer away quicker than not being able to figure out who you are and what you do.
- SEO Tactics
Let’s face it, no matter whether you’re a fan or not, SEO basically runs the digital marketing world. It doesn’t matter how big or small you are or what your message is, if your content is not Search Engine Optimized, it won’t get seen. And that’s a huge waste of marketing time and dollars with a 0% ROI. To put it simply, it’s bad for business, so always make sure you’re staying on top of the following:
- Keyword research-are your keywords current?
- Is page level SEO used?
- Link-building-does your anchor text link to quality pages?
- Does your site use external SEO, such as Yelp or social media accounts?
SEO is an ever-changing digital marketing artform, so it’s beyond crucial for every page of your website to encompass various elements that contribute to the overall success of your website. Here’s a stellar article that explains Search Engine Optimization further for those that are new to the game.
- Competition
In order for your company to succeed, you have to know what makes you different from your competition and market the heck out of it. Make sure you can answer the following:
- Who is your competition?
- Who is their target audience?
- What are their successes and shortcomings?
- What is their revenue?
- Are they using SEO and SEM?
- Do they have rich content and a good user experience?
Think of it this way…When you buy an engagement ring, you spend time finding the perfect diamond. No two diamonds are the same, even if they are in the same grade. Some are highs, some are lows, and some have a different cut or clarity. You are no different. Your competition is no different. And your branding and website experts are no different. Find what makes you unique and capitalize on it!
Need help? Get in touch with Signify Studio for more information or to schedule a FREE graphic and web design consultation–we’re always ready to help you make your website work for you!
