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Have you been wondering if your website is measuring up to your competitors? Your website is one of the most important components of a successful business brand. That being said, a poorly planned and carelessly designed website can hurt your image and business. One of the most important things to consistently ask yourself is whether your website is doing its job. More importantly, what is its job description in the first place? Your website is an important investment that will serve you well if you build it well.

Here are some things to consider when evaluating whether your site is performing well for you:

Is Your Website Design User-friendly?

People ignore design that ignores people. Your users must always be at the forefront of your mind when designing your site. It’s not about what your want your site to look like, but what your target audience wants to see. This is often something many designers often overlook. They attempt to design for the client, when they should really be designing for their client’s users. This means you must understand and research who will be using your site and how to make their experience pleasant and easy to get the information they are looking for.

According to studies, you have less than seven seconds to present your visitor with the information they require. If they can’t find it, they will leave your site and likely land on a competitor’s site. Put yourself in your visitors’ shoes and assess your navigation to ensure that potential customers can easily find what they need within a couple clicks. Keep your main navigation clear and include a search area and site map for easy access to all of your site’s content, as well as helping to improve Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Are Your Call to Actions (CTAs) Effective?

What do you want your users to do and how can you guide them to do it? That’s where clever call to actions come in! Good CTAs require an understanding of your visitors’ motivators. A call to action provides a focus for your site, a wayfinding system for your users and a way to measure your website’s success. Think about how you position your call to action on the page. Check out some great examples of CTAs in this article from Hubspot. Create call to actions that are interesting, with appealing incentives to get your visitors to do what you want on your site. Recognize your users’ needs and identify a problem. Then present them with a way to solve that problem by clicking your call to action.

Do Your Images and Graphics Reflect Your Brand In a Positive Way?

Your choices and combinations of fonts, colours, logo, layout, photography and illustrated graphics all work together to communicate the essence of your brand. Any one of those elements being “off” can create a disassociation with your brand and visitors. In my experience, using professional and original graphics and photography on your website is what will make your brand stand apart and develop its own unique personality.

Is Your Website 100% Responsive?

A responsive website is about more than just having it load on all devices. Your website is not considered responsive just because it fits entirely on a user’s screen. For every device of a different screen size, new communication challenges are presented. Therefore, it is imperative to design a different version of your website to tackle these challenges effectively. Designing a responsive website means making adjustments to the design to improve the users’ experience on the device they are using. A fully responsive website increases the reach of your marketing to a larger user base using an array of devices.

Do You Have Quality Content On Your Site?

The trick to writing amazing website content lies in understanding who your visitors are and who you want to attract. When venturing out to write website content, it is imperative to create a few buyer personas to keep you on track. Check out this article from HubSpot about how to create buyer personas. Your website content should entice your target audience. The way to do that is to create a visual representations of your ideal clients and cater your content to them.

Is Your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Working?

Keyword planning is essential to your SEO.  Remember that when you are optimizing your website you are writing for people—not search engines. SEO is synonymous with your content strategy, and you should be considering your buyer personas at all times.

If you have to scroll through search engine result pages when you perform a search using your targeted keywords, it usually means your SEO strategy could use some work (or it’s just non-existent).

Is Your Website Social?

If you are not using at least one or two social media platforms to advertise your site on, you might be missing out on opportunities. The inability to merge social media with your website can cost you big time. Ensure your website pages are shareable, and that they are being shared. Interacting with your target audience will help build credibility. Social media helps connect your site to millions of users daily. Use it to your advantage.

Does Your Site Have An Active Blog?

A blog is a marketing channel (just like social media, direct mail, email marketing, etc.) that helps support business or personal growth. Blogging drives traffic to your site and helps to establish trust through authority. Furthermore, a blog helps convert this traffic into leads. All this translates into long-term results, better SEO and more interaction with your target audience.

Is Your Site Being Maintained and Updated Regularly?

Regular management of your site and its assets is a good habit to be in. It is vital to keep up with updates in technology so your site is running optimally without crashing. An unmanaged website tends to quickly fall behind in SEO and search results. Don’t let your website just sit and collect dust when it could do so much for you! Book a consultation with a web specialist at SG Design + Photography today to see how your site is doing.