Your website is likely going to provide the first impressions you make with your customers. When you have guests come over to your home for the first time, your goal is to make a great first impression right? You wouldn’t host people for dinner if the house is a mess, and you didn’t have food prepared would you? The same goes for your websiteYou want the website to be an asset for your business towards increasing brand awareness, driving traffic to your website, and bolstering sales. Here are 10 tips to improve your website:
#1: Responsive Design
In today’s busy world full of cell phones, we like to remain connected as we’re on the go. The practical outcome of this is that we tend to search the web on a mobile device. Mobile searching has become so prevalent that now Google penalizes websites that are not optimized for mobile devices. This can ultimately hurt web traffic to your business. Making sure your site is mobile friendly can also help your website rank higher in search results. When mobile users enjoy a more pleasant experience, they tend to stay on the site longer. Search engines interpret this information as a sign that your website is relevant and holds valuable content.- Therefore your website can get a rank boost.
#2: Follow Standard Website Design Principles
There are certain elements that most websites have and your online visitors have come to expect. Rather than reinventing the wheel when designing your website, it is better to follow well established design principles and thought processes. Some design practices you should follow and consider for your website are:
• Have a functional search bar in the header of your website
• Embed a “Back-to-Top” button on lengthy pages
• Include call to action (CTA) buttons at the top of web pages
• Create intuitive page navigation your users
#3: Have Your CTA Stand Out
Online users will expect your website to have buttons, icons, links, and other call to action links that can help them navigate through your website quickly and easily. These CTAs can be outlined using visual cues to ensure that your users will know what to do when they encounter them on your website. Create call to actions links and place them strategically throughout the website where users will definitely notice and act on them.
#4: Choose Simple Design
Make it a priority to impress your visitors with your products or services, and not by how flashy your website looks. Websites that embrace minimalist, simplistic, clean and flat designs. This look is what brands are trying to achieve and adapt for their websites. Additionally, over the top flashy graphics will only slow down your website.
#5: Improve Load Times
Ask yourself, is your website taking too long to load? If so then there is an issue, and typically it is due with the way the website was programmed. There can be problems with the types of videos or images embedded on your website as well. To prevent this, you can compress image files, avoid the use of flash, and limit the use of animations and music. If load times exceed just a couple seconds then typically the bounce rate will drastically increase.
#6: Update Homepage Content
You only have one chance to make a first impression. When is the last time you have updated your homepage? Since it is usually the first thing people see when coming to your website, now is a good time to give your homepage a refresh. Changing headlines, updating images, revamping content are easy changes to implement. You can go the extra mile and review information gained from your Google Tag Manager to put more sought after information on the forefront of your pages. Not only should you consider the needs of your users when revamping your homepage, but the homepage also promote the goals of your website.
#7: Test Different Color Combinations
Certain color combinations mesh better than others, but did you know that your user's taste can change periodically? You might want to try out an A/B test by changing colors of buttons, CTAs, links, etc. and see if these changes give your page better conversions and longer on page views. You can find accents or complimentary colors for your website. For example, if the site is predominately blue or light blue, find a nice yellow or warm orange that can accent your color palette and call attention to itself.
#8: Use Stock Photos in Moderation
Stock photos are great for a lot of things. They allow you to download images that fit your company’s needs with ease, you can download royalty free images from websites like pexels.com and pixbay.com, and they are convent which allows you to focus your time on other tasks. But what you have to keep in mind is sometimes changing content up by using new images or pictures taken professionally might benefit in the long run. People can tell the difference between stock photos and professional imagery created for just your business. Try to implement them both for the best results.
#9: Clickable Logo
Your banner or logo should be clickable which will bring the user back to the homepage. This will make navigation easier and many online users come to expect this action on all websites. This might help boost organic traffic and keep your users on the website for longer!
#10: Strengthen Social
Throughout your website you can give your visitors the ability to share content. This can conclude embedding social media “share” buttons to your blog posts so users can easily promote your content on their feeds. This will also help your business reach new individuals and broaden your target audience of potential customers. You can also find plugins that will allow users to quote your content on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. These simple elements will help share your content and knowledge to people all across the internet!
How will you update your website today?
