Running any business can prove testing at any time but surely your website is doing everything it can to promote your business. Well is it?
It’s often the case that many small businesses spend so much time with their clients, the begin to neglect their own marketing material. It can often be very difficult to step back from your own brand and evaluate it objectively. Focusing on the business website, here are a few tips to help you identify some areas for improvement and perhaps a spring clean of the website might not be a bad idea.
First impressions count
Is your website up to date or is your latest news a few months old and the range of products and services out of date. Finding a website that has up to date content provides confidence to the visitor that you are on the ball and provides an instant impression of professionalism.
I want to make a change – Can I make the change?
Your website should inform visitors about your business in a clear and engaging manner. Keeping your services and products up to date is essential and having to contact your web developer or agency just to make the smallest of changes can be time consuming and costly.
Putting you in control of the content means you can easily manage the information on the site and with so many Content Management Systems (CMS) out there, you may want to ask the question “Why can’t I do this?”
I have no idea how many people visit my site.
You may receive a couple of enquiries a week from your website and be happy with this level of business, but how many people are looking at your website? Make sure you have a Google Analytics account and you use it. Getting information on the key trends, strengths and areas for improvements on your site will make your website work harder for you. Some of the results may surprise you.
Loads of homepage text – that’s good for SEO right?
People want to use your homepage as a signpost to the desired information. Are the most important / requested / profitable areas on the website easy for the visitor to find. if not, you need to look at the information hierarchy for the website and make sure that the visual language and typography reflects the required hierarchy. It’s no use burying Contact Us away in the corner if it is your main source of customer conversion on the website.
“What do I do now?”
“Well I’ve found the relevant information but I don’t have any visual stimulus to make the next step. I can’t find your email address, phone number, contact form – so what do you want me to do now”
It is surprising how many times this occurs and it will do nothing for the user experience. Don’t rely on the user finding the call to action, make sure they cannot miss it. If you have other relevant information, make sure they can easily find links to this.
If your site is exhibiting these symptoms, I recommend that you have a chat with your existing developer / agency and if you are not 100% happy with their response, why not have a chat with us on 0114 267 9277
