When it comes to your website there’s nothing quite as important as having it refined and optimized for your audience. Search engines tend to agree with this. More and more we’re finding Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other intelligent search engines working hard to think like people and determine which sites and what content is both useful and relevant to search queries.
Web development has become one of the most important and successful industry in the last few years – and it continues to gain in importance as search engines become more aware of how to identify a good site and a bad one. If you want to have the cutting edge in a competitive space you’re going to want to make sure your website is a focus that you pay attention to and optimize regularly.
This leads us to your website and how well it has been designed, engineered, and developed to offer users a streamlined and effective process. If we’re to be a little general we might reference an online clothing store and suggest that if you are forcing your users to go through multiple splash pages, newsletter sign-ups, and profile creation that you’re likely losing value potential customers through these engagement walls. These leads us to some very important points that you should consider:
You want to give your audience the easiest experience when they come to your site. Keep it clean. Keep it refined. Give them what they want as soon as possible. Don’t create various steps along the way that might give them a reason to leave.
Work with your team to find out what the best steps should be to get from your homepage to a conversion and then test it out – and keep testing it – because long-term optimizations will have a great and positive impact on your business and your presence online. Create landing pages with details related to your industry and your business and give users simple actionable – easy-to-follow steps to connect you to them – this is a priority for any business hoping to survive and thrive in the online world.
You’re going to have plenty of people that come across your site because they’re looking for something they want – but not necessarily right now – and in this spirit, you should always have a way to keep engaged with them. Provide opt-ins, coupons, newsletters, or any of a variety of retention and retargeting avenues to keep them interested in you and your product.
Some companies, for instance, send out rebate codes after a day or two if prospective clients were in the process of confirming a sale and provided an email address but dropped off for any number of reasons. You want a great website – and so do your users. Be sure you do whatever you can make it a reality.
Know your audience and work with them to provide assistance and reasons to associate you with a successful website experience. Having a properly working website will also contribute greatly to your SEO and the ability to gain clients organically. It may be useful to consider elements ranging from Social Media integration, but that’s a whole other story worth exploring in-depth, so let’s stick to your website for the time being.
The last decade has seen the movement from desktop to tablet and mobile devices scale ever-upwards and there are no signs that that is going to stop anytime soon. We can’t stress enough how important it is to have a website that is mobile friendly and provides clear direction and simple accessibility.
This may seem simple – and in many ways, it can be – but it will depend largely on what you offer and how you want to connect with your users. Take your phone and check your website right now. Does it load quickly? Is it simple? Is it refined? Does it reward the user? If you have any hesitation it may be worth your while to get a second, third, or a whole user-base or opinions to help refine the website into something very simple, clear, and user-friendly.
You want to be sure that you have the right team supporting your online presence – and this might just mean working with external teams that can offer proper analyses of your website and your online impact. You would be surprised how much can be affected by improper optimizations and keyword loading these days.
More than that, you want to be certain that you keep up with the trends and stay ahead of the curve for when things change and new opportunities present themselves. If you have web developers on your team then you may already know a good deal about the various options present for you. If you don’t happen to have an in-house web developer you may want to consult one, if only to determine what could be done to improve structure, retention, and user engagement.
When you have a modern website that has been carefully and meticulously designed to offer a streamlined process for your users, well, you’ll see results that will definitely impress. There are countless examples of websites and companies that have the right foot forward in some areas but then completely fail to adhere and address the complicated nuances that make websites win or lose.
We want you to take a few minutes to review some of your major competitors and ask yourself the simple question: “Is my website better?” If you have any hesitation it’s worth spending some time reviewing what makes yours better or what elements you know you could change to get a better result. There are simple things to consider, like broken links, URL lengths, meta tags, image choices, keyword loading, and much, much more that can make you less effective. But the good news is that it’s never too late to change your process and ensure you get the results you’re after.
Work with the Guaranteed SEO team and allow us to help you make the most of the digital frontier! Give us a call at 604-630-0767
