Having a website for your business is one of the best marketing tools to have today. The first impression of your business often comes from your website. Having a website provides easy access to the products and services your business offers. Before a consumer goes to a business, they are likely to look it up online. If their opinion of the website is negative, it is unlikely they will be visiting. That is why it is so important that you build a strong, aesthetically pleasing site that will encourage your customers to buy from you.
Websites are a way many businesses identify themselves. If you do not appear on a web search, most of your consumers are not going to know of your existence. Last, it is very easy too! There are many template-based websites that make it simple to construct a creative, easy to navigate and appealing site.
Below are some important factors that will help make building your business’ website a more pleasant process.
Hosting
Deciding where your website is going to “live” is another important factor to consider. As noted earlier, your website is a vital component to a business and you want to make sure it is good hands. All of your data and files will be stored here so it is important you choose a reliable host. If you do not, there are chances of security attacks, and a negative SEO rating. A few things to look for are that the hosting site has a positive reputation and a great customer support. At Robb Digital, we strictly use Flywheel hosting because of the many benefits it provides. Check out our website for more information on Flywheel.
User Experience
One of the most important factors to keep in mind is, the user experience. Ask yourself what you want your customers to get out of visiting your website? Whether it be submitting a lead or making a purchase, you must create a path directing your consumer to the specific page. If your website is not laid out in a clear manner, then the user will get frustrated and leave the site.
Create your website with a goal in mind that targets a specific market. Focusing on a niche market allows for personalization that will make your customers feel they are on the right site which will hopefully prompt them take action on your website.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO may be the best way to get customers to your site, however, you also want users to stay on the site. This being said, do not overwhelm your website with keywords — include only the most important. Notably, Google is moving further towards longer-form content that understands a visitor’s intention as a whole, instead of using keywords based on popular search queries to create content. It is important to include proper grammar, bold titles and subtitles to make content easy to read. Lastly, having meta descriptions and title tags will increase the chances of clicks that your site receives. The meta description is the small summary that appears in the search results to show the user what the site will include. Titles are the first thing the user is going to look at, so make them intriguing so they want to read more. Here are some tools that will help you perfect both; How to write meta descriptions for SEO, Title Tags Guide.
Navigation
To ensure that the user has a positive experience on your site, you must make it easy to navigate. You don’t want your users to get frustrated and exit the site because they cannot find what they are looking for. “Make sure that everything important on your site is accessible within 3 clicks. That means that nothing is buried more than 3 pages deep from the main entry points on your site.” Create a starting point for your audience, perhaps a homepage, that provides links to a few pages providing them the ability to directly click on what they want. Create a limited amount of tabs for your site, and link the pages through images. Images can either be buttons, or actual pictures of the product that link to the checkout or lead page. Usage of images that are not linked is fine if they are minimal. You want your website to be aesthetically pleasing but if there are too many images without links, it may confuse the user.
Speed
Another factor of customer satisfaction is the speed of your website. If your site takes too long to load, users will exit the site in most cases. It is easy to test the speed of your site with a google powered speed test tool. One way to reduce the loading time of your site is to make the images smaller. This can easily be done by resizing the images with a photo editing software.
Additionally, streamlining the content of the website will make it much faster. This can be done by limiting the number of menu items on the main page. Do not overlap the information available on the site, get to the point and be concise. Too much information will turn away users and slow down your site.
Security
Security is a major concern when going online, especially with companies having their data hacked left and right. Many people feel unsafe entering personal information not knowing where it may end up. To solve this issue, make sure your site is secure! If your site uses a SSL Certificate to transfer your customers’ information, they will immediately feel safer. Any site that requests information through a contact form must have an SSL certificate to avoid being shown as “not secure” when someone visits your page. Read more on the importance of SSL in our blog.
If you would like someone to help build your website for you, Robb Digital can help. Contact us today to learn how we can help you build your website as well as learn about our new hosting and maintenance options for 2017.