5 Ways To Improve Your Business Website

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Every business needs a website, but having a website isn’t enough to suddenly see the clients flooding in. Your website has to be easy to find, easy to navigate and striking enough that it turns visitors into customers. Knowing what needs to be improved isn’t always obvious. Here are a few methods that could be worth trying.

 

Get a professional to review your website

 

The best way to identify your website’s faults is to pay a professional to privately review it for you. They will be able to give honest and constructive criticism on how to improve your site from the design to the navigation. There are many people that can do this very cheaply and professionally.

 

Seek help from web designers

 

If you or a family member designed your website, it may need a little professional sprucing up to make it look a little less amateurish. Alternatively, your site may have been made many moons ago and now looks outdated. Seek professional web designers that can implement advanced user adoption techniques to make it more modern and flashy.

 

Update with regular content

 

Not updating your website regularly can make it look like your business is inactive. A great way to keep your website active is to start blogging. Create posts on your website such as advice columns on issues related to your product and news updates on client interests.

You can also update your website with seasonal promotion and calendar alerts to events such as business fairs and community events that you may be taking part in. You should also post regular testimonials and examples of past work. A buzzing website makes it look like you’re active and getting lots of customers – even if you’re not.

 

Link your website to social media

 

Facebook and Twitter are becoming big marketing opportunities for businesses. From here you can promote straight to family, friends and strangers locally and globally. By linking these social media pages to your website, you will have more online presence, increasing the amount of traffic your website receives. View your website as your store and your social media as your shop front to the world – without social media won’t know you’re there.  

 

Improve your website’s search engine rankings

 

Another way to improve your online presence is to get yourself positioned higher up on search engines such as Google and Yahoo. If your business is appearing on page 30 of search engines, no-one is going to find you. If you’re on the first page – to use the shop analogy once more – you’re effectively moving from the city outskirts to the busy high street.

Whilst there are ways to improve your search engine rankings yourself, it may be more worthwhile investing in an SEO company that have a better understanding of how the algorithms work. Whatever you do, don’t try to cover your website in spammy keywords (like ‘hairdressers’ 100 times if you’re a hairdressing company) as search engines may respond by lowering your rankings (your website will also read horribly and put clients off).  

 

Is Your Business Website Lacking?

Having a business website that gets the message across perfectly to your audience is crucial to your success. While you have plenty of other things to think about, such as your social media channels, focusing on your business website is an important step too. Here’s how to find out if your business website is lacking and what you can do about it:

 

You Have No Personality

 

Your business website should have a personality if you want to keep people engaged and coming back. It may depend on the kind of business you’re running. If you deal with sensitive subjects or very complicated lines of work, then it can be a good idea to keep things professional.

However, in most cases, you must have some personality on your website to get your message across. You can tell people a lot about your business this way, and make them relate to you better. You should be consistent in the way you write and include it where appropriate. It should match the way you communicate with clients on emails and social media too.

 

You Don’t Have A Mobile Version Of Your Site

If you don’t have a mobile version of your site, you’re definitely missing out on a lot of traffic and potential sales. Some people don’t even shop using a computer anymore, they shop using their mobile device. Your site should be responsive if you want to ensure you’re catering for everybody. There’s nothing more frustrating than not being able to see the site you want to see.

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You’re Not Sharing Vital Knowledge With Your Audience

 

You probably have knowledge in your industry that your audience would be interested to know. Why aren’t you sharing it with them? You can do this via a blog on your website. Don’t give away all of your secrets at once, though. Keep your audience coming back for more. Share information with them that will help them when using your product/service. This is the kind of thing that can make you known as an expert in your niche too.

 

You Haven’t Included Important Information

 

You need to have important information on your site, such as a business address, phone number, and a list of FAQs. This will help people make the decision to buy from you.

 

You’re Not Putting A Focus On SEO

 

SEO is crucial. What’s the point in having a great site with lots of personality if people don’t know that it’s there? This isn’t about manipulating the search engines any more though. It’s about giving your audience more value.

 

You’re Always Experiencing Problems

If you always experience problems with your site, you could be losing customers. Having adequate IT support to fix these issues ASAP is crucial to your success.

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Your Site Is Difficult To Navigate

 

Your site should be pretty easy to get around. You don’t want to make it hard for your audience to find bits of information or pages they want to see. Make sure they can get from A-B smoothly.

 

Your Ordering Process Is Too Complicated

If your audience process is too complicated, this can really put customers off buying from you. You should make it as simple to input information as possible.

Hiring A Professional Web Designer: A Worthy Investment For Your Business?

It’s virtually impossible to find a modern business that wouldn’t benefit from a quality website. But there’s one question that’s on the tip of every entrepreneur’s list: DIY or outsource?

As with any major business decision, there are positives and negatives to every approach. However, by weighing up those elements, you should have no problem arriving at the right decision. Here’s everything you need to know.

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The Cost

 

Let’s face it: financial elements will dictate every business decision you ever make. If it doesn’t make sense in this aspect, it won’t make sense in general. Hiring a professional will cost some money, but the fierce competition means that it’s more affordable than you’d think.

Going DIY will obviously save you money. However, you shouldn’t forget to consider the little costs that will soon add up. Web hosting, premium WordPress themes, and other elements all need to be factored in. Whatever option you take, some investment will be needed. But the rewards can be huge.

Quality

 

The online environment plays a massive role in the modern business world. Moreover, audiences are more demanding than ever. As such, it’s imperative that your website gains the desired impact. Otherwise, the whole process is a little redundant.

Looks are crucial, but it’s also imperative to think about function. Experts like Lightbox Digital will have a far greater knowledge of working the online audience. Ultimately, a more responsive site built towards conversion will help your business greatly. On the other hand, you know your audience. If you don’t go it alone, you need the designers to embrace your information at the very least. After all, it’s your business.

Presence

 

If nobody sees your website, it’s pointless having one. Whether you choose a professional or design the site yourself, a strong web presence is key. Understanding and utilizing search engine optimization is essential.

Meanwhile, you need to appreciate the changing trends. The growth of mobile audiences, for example, will have a huge impact on the process. Whatever avenue you choose, embracing the latest and greatest facilities must be top of your agenda. An outdated site will struggle to make any impact whatsoever.

Time

 

In truth, the biggest element to consider is time. If you have the natural flair and ability, it is possible to teach yourself the majority of key factors of design and SEO. You might not get a product that’s quite to the same standard, but it can still achieve positive results.

Time is money. If the money you lose out on by dedicating your time to this process outweighs the cost of hiring a pro, the decision is easy.

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Management

 

Creating the website is one thing, but it won’t stay static. Therefore, you need the management aspects to be easily handled. Having your site linked to social media will cut down on the admin of running it, which will save time and money.

Once again, this is something you can achieve through DIY efforts or an expert. In summary, hiring a designer is a worthwhile investment. But for some entrepreneurs, going it alone is an even better one. As long as you weigh up your skills and resources in an effective manner, the right answer will become clear.

[post contributed for tamarhela.com]

 

Is Your Website Turning Off Potential Customers?

There are so many advantages of a good company website, and as a business it’s one of the most important things to get right. A good website means you’re much more likely to be discovered by customers, your information is accessible all hours of the day and it’s generally much more convenient for anyone who is interested in your services. An abundance of research sources show that a well-built website generates more sales and better customer traffic, and can all help to make a business more successful.

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If you’ve had your website for a long time you will probably need a redesign, but even if it’s recently been redone, it’s worth making sure the following things are all in place:

Good Navigation

Possibly the most important part of a website is the navigation. Everything should be intuitive, easy to find and simple to understand. This will make it quick and easy for customers to click through. Keep menu links relevant, organised with good sub-categories if needed rather than cluttering the space with lots of different links. Menu bars and buttons should be consistent across all aspects of the site so it’s simple for users to understand.

Organised Content

Leading on from navigation, organisation is also hugely important; how the content itself is structured can be the difference between success or failure. Be aware that users tend to skim through information and pick out points of interest on a web page, and so organising it well will allow them to do this without simply being put off and clicking out. Use readable sized paragraphs with subheadings and bullet points where necessary.

Easy to Search

Whether you run a personal blog or a corporate website, it’s crucial that you add a visible search bar. The visitor might be looking for something that isn’t shown on the first page, and being able to search prevents them from having to trawl through the entire site (or simply closing the page and taking their customers elsewhere).

Good Storefront

When you’re using your website to drive the sales of products, using an e-commerce stall is the way to go. According to Invesp, e-commerce sales are growing at 10% each year in the US, and 19% worldwide. Magento is an ecommerce platform which gives online merchants a flexible shopping cart system, as well as control over the look, content and functionality of their online shop. If you choose a service with Magento support, you’re covered in case of any problems.

Easy To Read

Forget the fancy fonts, flash based graphics and animations. Being easy to read is far more important than showing off your artistic flair. Dark text on a white background with a font size that’s comfortable for the majority of people to read is always your best bet. Ensuring that your pages are properly optimised for different devices will make your content easier to read too. Anything that requires zooming in or scrolling horizontally isn’t a good sign.

Clear Contact Information

Clear contact information makes your company look trustworthy, and so make sure the link to this on your site to this is easy to see. Being able to make contact easily is essential for business, you don’t want to lose customers as they weren’t able to find a way to send an email or find your phone number. Another important thing to add to your contact information is your social media; this is an essential part of running a business. So make sure customers can easily click through to your pages, and that they’re all regularly updated.

A Company blog

A company blog is beneficial for a website in a number of ways. It helps drive more traffic to your website; every time you write a blog post, you get another indexed page on your site. This gives you more opportunity to show up in search engines and can gain you traffic to your website in organic search. These blog posts have the potential to be shared across social media too, which again will drive more traffic your way.

[post contributed for tamarhela.com]