As a business owner, you’ve probably already invested in setting up a business website. You employed a website developer’s services to design your website, or you tried to DIY through the templates available online.
6 Things to Think About When Setting up Your Business Website
With all of this effort, it appears that the website is not working for you. It doesn’t rank on Google, and even worse, your sales aren’t increasing, so it feels like the website is dead. Or, perhaps, you’re just about to venture into setting up a business website, but you’re not so sure where to begin.
It’s important to know that some key reasons why a website may be inefficient are because you fail to employ cogent, functional steps that would help your website bring desired results. Simply setting it up is not enough.
This article will explore six things you should think about when setting up your website to achieve the best results.
Let’s dive right in.
Why should you invest in a good website for your business?
Many business owners treat their websites as an afterthought, so they don’t get good results on their websites. You invest in your physical stores and offices’ design but leave your website shabby-looking and poorly developed.
Do you know your website is your online office or store? It is where your prospective customers go to check out your business and determine if you are good enough to do business with.
Stats reveal that 81% of consumers conduct online research before making a purchase. This means if your website doesn’t measure up to their expectations, you would be missing out on this 81%!
6 important things to remember when setting up your website
Just like you would design your office, retail space, restaurant, or lobbies using commercial interior design to give it a positive and appealing outlook, you should also invest in designing a good website to create the right impression on your customers.
Below are six ways to achieve a functional website for your business.
1. Your website should be mobile-friendly
A good business website must be mobile responsive so that it doesn’t become a turn-off for prospective customers. A study by Formstack reveals that 57% of consumers will not recommend a website that is not mobile-friendly to users.
This is because everyone wants to navigate websites on their mobile device easily without using their computers. Also, if your website is not mobile-friendly, it may hamper your Google rankings.
This is because Google now ranks websites according to its mobile version and not desktop version based on its new mobile-first indexing practices.
To make your website mobile-friendly, ensure that you program your website to display well on different screen sizes and devices. Make sure your website text is easy to read, your website links are visible, and visitors don’t need to adjust the screen to view images.
2. Staying trendy helps you keep site visitors
If your website has old designs, you would most likely turn many visitors off from staying glued to your website. However, your visitors will remain captivated if your website is updated to match current website trends.
This is why you must update your website frequently every few years to keep your website engaging and relevant to visitors. Below are some of the website trends you should consider when updating your website.
● Don’t make them pinch
Your users shouldn’t have to pinch or zoom on your website to view content clearly. If they have to do this too often, they will get frustrated and leave your website angrily. Ensure your website does not require pinching or zooming in to view contents.
● Use white space
Use white texts around images, texts, and links to avoid clutter.
When there is enough white space on your website, too much cluttered information won’t repel your visitors. Instead, they will be able to grasp the essence of your website without being overwhelmed.
● Keep online forms short and simple
If you have forms like contact forms or sign-up forms on your website, make them bite-sized and easy to understand.
If you make forms long and complicated, visitors won’t fill them because no one likes to spend a lot of time filling forms. So, ensure the forms on your website are simple and keep their length to the barest minimum.
● Use latest SEO trends
No matter how well designed your website is, if you don’t use the right SEO practices, your website will never rank on Google. Using the latest SEO trends will make your website rank in Google’s search results and help your customers find you easily.
Three of the latest SEO trends you can inculcate in your website include:
- Include the main keywords in the initial part of your website content.
- Make your website content unique.
- Maximize your title tag for SEO.
Using these three SEO trends and more, you will see a significant change in your website rankings on Google.
● Write compelling copy
Make your website copy simple, straightforward, and engaging so you can drive your visitors to take action.
Make sure your text is detailed but not overwhelming. Avoid industry jargon, and ensure your copy is relatable, straightforward, and relevant enough for any visitor that visits your website.
Use headlines to convey your products or services’ benefits and entice your target market to read through. Bullets also ensure your copy is easy to skim through, making your copy digestible, engaging, and compelling for your visitors.
3. Faster site speed helps with consumer engagement
How do you feel when a site takes too long to load? Frustrated?
You’d probably leave the site, too, without hesitation to try other sites that have similar information to what you are looking for.
The same thing happens when your website’s speed is low. A Google research reveals that users desert 53% of mobile websites if it takes longer than three seconds to upload.
People live busy lives, so they like to get information as fast as possible; a slow website speed doesn’t just cut it. Ensure you make your visitors’ experience swift by making your website load quickly too.
This way, they spend more time on your website, which can help to spur them to make purchases or continue to engage with your business.
4. Using effective CTA buttons helps to convert leads
Call To Action buttons, commonly known as CTA buttons, is what tells your audience exactly what to do on your website.
CTA buttons are very important on your website because your website will be synonymous with a news article without them. Visitors will not perform your specific desired action; they will only read what you have on your website and leave to check out another website with a clear CTA button.
If you want to make sales on your website as a business owner, use a clear CTA button that tells your customers to “BUY NOW,” “SIGN UP NOW,” or other effective, clear words.
Your CTA buttons shouldn’t be hard to see; in fact, they should be located close to the top of your homepage or in other conspicuous spots. Make sure they are large and well-placed for anyone to click on; ensure they are clear and specific.
5. Placing your contact option right gives them easier access to you
If you want your visitors to contact you or visit your social media page, then you should place your contact information where they can easily see it.
Don’t make your visitors look for your contact option; they might be discouraged to keep searching if they don’t find it in seconds. Make your contact information visible; preferably, place them at the top or bottom of your home page.
This would ensure it’s among the first things your visitors will see when they land on your website. Again, if you want your visitors to connect to you through your social media platforms, then put the links at the header or footer so your visitors can see them easily.
6. Improve the user experience
When your visitors come to your page, you need to ensure they have a worthwhile experience. How do you do this?
Ensure your website UI passes the usability test.
These are the five most important usability components you should keep in mind when designing your website UI.
- Learnability: How easily can visitors perform tasks when they visit your website for the first time?
- Memorability: Will users remember how to use your website after they stop using it for a while?
- Efficiency: How fast can visitors carry out tasks on your website?
- Errors: Does your website UI reduce the rate at which your visitors make errors? If visitors make errors, how easily can they recover from it?
- Satisfaction: How satisfied are your visitors when they visit your website?
Asking these questions when designing your website interface will enable you to create a seamless navigation and website experience for your visitors. You can conduct a usability test through useful tools like Maze or UserZoom.
Conclusion
Setting up your website the right way will help you achieve results that beat your imagination. Your website will rank better on Google so your customers can find you easily.
You will also make more sales because your customers will have a pleasant user experience, among other benefits. Follow through with all six tips when setting up your website and watch out for the best results.
Good luck.
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