In order for your business to take off to that next level, your website needs to be one of your main focuses.
When you have a winning website, your business is seen as an informative and authoritative player in your respective industry. When your website is viewed as being average at best, it is tougher to land more traffic, translating in to less overall revenue for your company.
So, can you say with confidence that your business website is a moneymaker or is it actually a financial drag on your company?
Focus on Increasing Web Traffic
For your website to do its job that is sending more consumer eyes your way and ultimately more dollars, give your site a thorough review.
Start this initiative by looking at what your site offers the average consumer.
The first area of interest should be the site’s overall layout.
Is the site friendly to consumer eyes or is it one where viewers will find it hard to locate what they want?
When the discussion of location comes up, is your site well planned out whereby consumers can move from page to page without feeling like they’re inside a maze?
If your site has visitors jumping through hoops in order to locate the information and/or products or services they want, it could very well be that your site is not professionally designed.
In those cases, finding a provider like a phoenix web development company or another such business can give you the professional touch your site requires.
With the right web development plans in place, here are some of the areas that should be a high priority:
- Layout – First and foremost, you want an eye-catching layout that will keep visitors wanting to come back to your site again and again. Not only is your content (see more below) critical, but good imagery means the world too. Focus on images that are positive (happy people and other positive photos etc. are much better than showing negative images). You also want to keep items on your site short and sweet. Many of today’s viewers have relatively short attention spans, so they’re not inclined to view and/or read items that will take them long stretches of time;
- Content – The content you place on your site (blog posts, white papers etc.) proves critical to drawing viewers and increasing your leads. If you haven’t already, invite guest bloggers to your site, notably those individuals that are informative and authoritative in their fields. One of the advantages of guest posters to your site is that they are likely to share their posts that you run on their social media accounts. In turn, this exposes your website and brand to more potential business. One other note of interest on your content, keep it fresh. If consumers come to your site, they are not inclined to be all that interested in copy that is weeks or months old. Having stale copy also hurts your overall search engine rankings;
- Contacts – Make sure you have an easy to locate contact section on your site. When you make visitors spend an endless amount of time trying to find a contact or contacts for a product or service on your site, you’re wasting their time and yours. Have your contact info link preferably at the top of your homepage. If you have a sizable company, make it so department managers are easy to contact, leaving an email and/or phone number with their names;
- Socializing – As good as your website may or could be, what good is it if just about no one knows about it? It is crucial that proper promotion on social media is never overlooked. You should promote your site daily on your different social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn etc.). Doing so allows your site to get in front of countless eyes, eyes that may very well be willing to help increase your revenue stream. Another key point here, make sure you share and tweet others in the business community (this doesn’t necessarily mean your direct competitors). Assisting others in promoting their products and services is a win-win for your brand and theirs too.
Your business website can be a proven moneymaker when you put the time and effort into it.
If you don’t, you will see less of the green and more of the red that is in losing money.
About the Author: Dave Thomas covers small business topics on the web.