Follow These Tips For A High-Converting Website

A website is an investment. It is an important part of your business profile because it allows you to market, advertise and establish the credibility of your business. And like any other business investment, you’d want to make the most out of it.

The problem is that not all websites have been built and finely tuned to maximize its potential. It can get downright technical and most times, you would need expert developers to make your website truly work for you.

But to give you an idea, here’s an overview of the key things you should do for a high performing website:

Make sure your website can easily be found.

If users can’t find your website, what does it matter that it has been designed well and has great content?

To make sure your site is more visible, work on your SEO. Optimize your pages and images, especially your homepage, with valuable content. Make your content easily shareable because even though it doesn’t really contribute to your ranking, it’s one great way to make it more visible. Also take note how your site appears when it is shared in social media.

If your business has several locations, create a page for each location.

This would let Google know you are relevant and is a valuable resource to people in those specific areas or suburbs. To help put your site at the top of the search rankings for queries related to your business, use keywords that people will be searching for. Page titles should be general and not too specific and should include the name of the target area or suburb.

Make your site load faster.

Now that users have found your site, the next thing you want to make sure of is for your website to load quickly. People expect it to load fast, otherwise, they will become impatient and hit the back button. After all the work you did for people to find you, you don’t want to lose them to load speed issues.

This actually works back into the ranking factor. Site load speed is becoming more important for users. The faster your site loads, the better the user experience, the higher your conversion rate would be. Google also prefers fast loading sites over slow ones in their search results.

Your site should be easy to navigate on mobile.

This is really important as more and more people are now relying on smartphones to connect to the internet. But what often happens is the navigation menu is easy to navigate on desktops but not on mobile.

Your site should be mobile-friendly. Elements on your site should display in an easy-to-read format especially tables and forms. Again, this feeds into a great user experience and Google’s quality score for ads and SEO.

Work on making a great first impression.

Users should be able to tell who you are, what you can do for them and how they can get started intuitively. There are many websites that look pretty but doesn’t convey their message immediately.

Use one very good image that conveys who you are, what benefits people can get and probably a button to click on so they can get started. Avoid using videos and image sliders because they just slow down your load speed, dilutes your message and distracts people from your message.

Build trust.

People are apprehensive handing money or sensitive information through the internet. Reassure users that you are legit and trustworthy by adding social proof and testimonials from people who have used your services before. Other things that build trust and legitimacy include logo associations and seals.

Keep your site secure.

A site that has been hacked can cause a lot of trouble. The same happens if Google puts a big warning saying your site is unsafe. It can hurt your brand and you can lose the trust of visitors. Google will also stop running ads to you and it could ruin your SEO rankings, too.

To stay secure, keep your website software up-to-date, installing SSL and making sure you have regular backups.

Generate your style.

The design of your site should highlight your core message. You should avoid adding too many things that can distract users from your primary goals. Make your call-to-action really stand out by using contrasting buttons and strong wording. Making the process as easy as possible for users will turn interested visitors into paying customers.

Build your assets.

Not all who visit your site are ready to become paying customers right away. Install Google Analytics so you can track who’s using your website. You can then show ads to them on Facebook or things like that to remind them about you. It’s a lot easier to get people who are already familiar with you to come back and check your site again.

You can also build an email database to target some very good email messaging, build a relationship with them by providing more value and ultimately turn them into a paying customer.

All these—your website and the leads you have built—are actually saleable assets and not an expense. It’s something you spend money on but it’s something that also increases in value over time.

Do you need help fine-tuning your website and maximize its value? Do you want to know where your website is now in terms of speed, security and overall performance? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. We can help.