“Great web design without functionality is like a sports car with no engine.”
— Paul Cookson
In today’s competitive economy, your website must be more than a “pretty face” to your target audience. If your website isn’t attracting the quality customers that you are targeting, it’s time to refresh your strategy. Take a look at these seven tips and see what you’re doing right, what’s a challenge, and what opportunities you may be missing out on.
- Install a user-friendly Content Management System (CMS). A content management system is the software application that you have chosen as the foundation that your site is built on. This application or set of related programs are used to create, manage and maintain your website content. The reliability and ease in which you can work in your site is vital to the health and attractiveness to the user AND search engine activity.
- Maintain your website by updating content on a regular basis. As the expert in your field, it is important to have the freedom and ability to consistently add information, product or services updates and other customer-friendly information in a timely manner. This content can include blogs, links to relevant articles and even polls that can help you better know your visitors.
- Do your homework, listen to your customer and study your competition when choosing keywords and phrases that best describe why your services or products are needed. Be specific. Expand your search into phrases that apply to your specialty. Studies show that more than half of all keywords used on search sites are four or more words long.
- Give customers a reason to take the next step. Include a “call to action” at the top of every page. Your customer needs to know that you and your team want their business. It can help to add a “chat” component on your site to better serve and engage the customer. If you do add this, make sure that your team is ready and available and a process is in place to service this area of the website.
- Make sure that your images (especially in a gallery or portfolio section) are described with words that are specific to that image. A search engine does not recognize a graphic or picture that does not include an alt description. This is the perfect spot to use specific keywords without cluttering content.
- Logical and simple navigation is the key to keeping your customer on your site. As in other areas of life, simpler is better. The navigation of a website needs to make sense, yet clear to all types of visitors. The navigation in your website should be hassle-free, that way your customers will stay on your site, seek out your business, and refer your site to friends.
- Last but certainly not least, meet your customers where they are! This means that your website needs to display correctly on the myriad of devices that people are using to search the internet. Make sure that your website is responsive to the screen differences as well as mobile-friendly as more and more people are using their smart phones for everything.
