5 Tips to Revive Your Tired Web Presence
By Black Bear Design on 02/5/2018
There are many factors involved in making a website a success: compelling design, fast load times, clear brand identity, seamless ecommerce solutions, and responsive web design. And it’s important to keep on top of all of them to develop a brand your customers feel they can trust. But the day-to-day operations of running a business don’t leave a lot of extra time for monitoring and updating your website. And, before you know it, it’s beginning to feel a little rusty. As an internet development company in Atlanta, we understand.
Let’s assume you don’t have a clunky, old website that’s a nightmare to update or that your brand position has changed so much since you launched your site that it no longer matches your message. Instead, perhaps, your site is just simply a bit outdated and feeling stale. Here are five tips to get you ready to show off a refreshed new site.
Take a Good Look Around
The job description for your website is to convey the right information about your business to help persuade your audience that it’s a good idea to do business with you. Your role when reviving your website is to assess if it’s still doing that job. Take some time for an in-depth, impartial look at your site. Or ask a trusted colleague or friend to do website review and follow your sales funnel for you. Can they quickly and easily get from the home page to “converted” in a few simple steps? If not, you’ve got work to do.
Don’t expect your customers to become detectives to figure out what your brand can offer them. 86% of people expect to find products and services content on the home page of a site they visit. Deliver the basics on your homepage with links to dig deeper to get them moving through your site and contacting you to convert. Just remember, 51% of people think “thorough contact information” is the most important component missing from company websites. Don’t make them hunt for your phone number. If appropriate, add complete contact information to the footer of all pages. Or, add obvious links to the Contact page to help build that trust.
Update Your Content – Often
Clients who visit your site regularly to book appointments or pay monthly fees will begin to notice that you don’t post fresh content. When confronted with the same thing every time, their interest in your site – and your business – may fade. While you don’t have to post new material every day, there are many options for posting regularly such as blogs posts, social feeds and short videos from events or promotions. Try updating the images on your site or adding a monthly promotion to your home page to help it feel refreshed.
As one of the top SEO companies in Atlanta, Black Bear Design knows that blogging can have a huge impact on your web presence. Google indexes more of your pages when you put up regular blog posts, and this alone can help drive traffic to your site. Blogging also helps you build credibility by showing your expertise and knowledge, plus companies with a blog can experience an average traffic increase of 55%. Each one of these visitors could become a customer. And, don’t forget, they also all have the potential to share a blog post on their social media.
Get Social
In the U.S. 81% of Americans have at least one social media profile (up from 56% just five years ago). It’s no longer enough to put out content for people to passively consume. Your audience expects to be able to participate in your content too. And one way to do this is by making it easy for them to share it on their social media profiles.
Videos are one of the easiest forms of content to share on social, and you can include links back to your full content. Videos are also more likely to attract close attention when compared to any other type of content. 55% of users consume videos completely rather than skimming (as opposed to blog posts, which most readers skim). Skimming right now? It’s ok. Looks like most of us do.
80% of social media time is spent on a mobile device, so make sure your social media content looks great on mobile because that’s where it’s much more likely to be seen. PS, Pinterest is the most mobile social network with 64% of its referred traffic coming from either smartphones or tablet devices. So if your business is on Pinterest, make sure your site looks just as good on those devices when they navigate over.
Be Responsive
We aren’t referring to excellent client services here, although that’s obviously important to the success of any business. No, we mean a responsive website design that automatically changes to be mobile-friendly on the device you’re using. You want your visitors to have the best experience possible on your site, without forcing them to adapt to interact with it. That’s because Google says 61% of users aren’t likely to return to a mobile site if they had trouble accessing it and 40% will visit a competitor’s site instead.
At Black Bear Design, we build mobile responsive websites in Atlanta for a variety of clients, and it has become vital. In 2016, 43.6% of all web traffic worldwide was generated through mobile phones, up from 35.1% in 2015. Mobile currently accounts for half of all global web pages served according to Statista. Think about how often you grab your phone to do some quick research about a product or service. Once a day? Twice a day? Three times? It has become commonplace to begin research on your phone because it’s always accessible. Make sure your site is too.
Consider the User in Everything
According to Forrester Research, nearly 50% of visitors leave sites when they cannot find what they are looking for. By studying data analysis and using heat map technology, you can determine how visitors are using your site and highlight areas for improvement.
Take a look at the analytics for your site’s visitors to see where they go once they reach the home page. Are they continuing through the site or are they immediately leaving? 47% of consumers say they look at the Products or Services page first on a website with the Home page and About Us coming in second and third on that list. What this tells us is something we probably already realize: people are rushed and want to get what they need and get out. Even when it comes to a website. Make their experience an easy and painless one, and you’ll win customers.
If the thought of reviving your web presence with a site refresh has you feeling overwhelmed, we understand. Black Bear design is one of the top website development companies in Atlanta, and we’ve heard it all. Ready to update your online storytelling? Please contact us today.
