Five 2019 Website Essentials

Increase Customer Engagement and Sales

We've made it through a fridig winter and now looking forward to the freshness of spring – the season where the flowers are blooming, the sun is shining and the weather is just right. Just as we look forward to the brightness and renewal of life and light in the environment, we should also be looking forward to doing the same for our brands. This is the perfect time for you to freshen up your web presence and give your clients something new to consider. Here are five steps to maximize your web presence.

Content that Sells

Content is key for any website whether simple or comprehensive. It’s one of the most critical components for converting browsers to buyers. When a potential client visits your site, they are trying to decide whether you have something they want. Said simply, a site should provide value. That’s done through your stories, insights and it should ultimately enhance sales.

Good content increases efficiency. Content that adequately informs or educates, increases efficiency and opportunities for lead generation. Sales or service staff aren’t bogged down with unnecessary follow-up questions. Customers then move faster to purchasing or accessing promoted content, like downloading your guide, e-book or template that generates a sales lead. . Your team is then able to take the information provided on the download form and follow up with that lead and reel them in.

Content Management System

While valuable content is key to any great site, having a system in place to be able to manage that content is equally important. A quality content management system will make it easier on your team to update your website with fresh, relevant and timely information. Ease is needed for today’s speed of business. Even those with experienced web developers onsite benefit here. You allow technical staff to work on future technology and maintenance while communications can be managed by sales and marketing staff.

With a CMS, you’ll be able to add or delete pages and incorporate other necessary tools like an event calendar or a blogging section. The speed enabled by a CMS can provide organic content that allows you to address trending topics and comments which is a great way to show that you are a leader in your field. It’s also easy for your system to connect with your social media channels and drive traffic to your content.

Depending on your needs, most management systems are affordable, however they may have limited functionality and may not always be compatible with other the other software or programs you’re using in your daily operations. If you have specific needs not offered by most available-for-purchase systems, it’s better to call a developer to help you build a system to meet your business’ needs.

SEO

We’ve talked a lot about content – content for sales, content management systems – because without quality content, you don’t have a quality site. However, you can’t just stop at creating great stories or downloadable guides and playbooks or blog articles to post on your site. Sites must be optimized so that your audience can find you online.

It’s important to know that Google prioritizes search results based upon how well your site is optimized. In brief, this means that depending on what the consumer is searching for, if your site does not have the right keywords incorporated into your content, in a logical flow, your business will come up further down the list of results if not on the next page.

A few starting tips that help boost search engine optimization:

1. Your business name is in your domain name
2. Your web page is content useful to your website visitors and integrates your business name and low-competition keywords throughout the site, including in page descriptions
3. Cross linking – it helps to link to new pages or content from other pages on your site
4. Take advantage of headings and subheadings and use them to incorporate keywords
5. Your site is mobile optimized

Mobile Optimization

It’s almost impossible to get away from mobile in the 21st century. As smart phones become more advanced, more consumers are moving away from traditional desktop and laptop computers and moving toward hand-held pocket devices as their primary operating device. If your site is not mobile-friendly in 2019, you're doing your competition a favor. Start the transition now.

A recent trend in mobile design is mobile-first, or building a site for mobile first and designing it to be responsive so that it still fits on various screen sizes. It used to be the opposite way around – desktop sites designed with responsiveness were able to fit on mobile screens because mobile was not considered as much of a priority as it is now, but SynergyTop – a California-based design agency – released a report stating that as of July 2018, there were nearly 4 billion global internet users and more than 3.8 billion were unique mobile internet users. As we go further into the digital age, it’s time to start rethinking the way we design.

Excellent User Experience

The dictionary defines user experience as the overall experience of a person using a product such as a website or computer application, especially in terms of how easy it is to use. In short, are people happy or annoyed about using your website?

When a consumer visits your site, you have a limited amount of time to capture their attention and convince them to want to stay. Your website be easy to navigate, aesthetically pleasing, and valuable to your target demographic.

Improve your user experience using these tips:

1. Conduct usability tests—find customers that represent your target.  Evaluate them as they complete the tasks.
2. Limit data collection. It's good to collect a bit of info – maybe, name and email address. Too many forms and long surveys will turn visitors off.
3. Connect to social – include links to and from your social media platforms and invite your visitors to share your content and interact with you. More brands are making it easier to share content by pre-drafting posts or linking key phrases of content and making them sharable.
4. Clear calls to action for your website visitor to follow
5. Know your audience and design your site so that it feels intutive and easy to navigate to your target demographic.
6. Track what your visitors are and are not doing on your site and make necessary adjustments

These five strategies, delivering on content, optimizing your site for search, using time-saving and money-saving technology like CMS, and ensuring mobile responsiveness while maintaining an excellent user experience, can definitely elevate your web experience and business.

Blue Symphony, LLC is ready to help your company get set-up for success. Contact us to assist you with any of these areas and any of your digital solutions. Be sure to reach out with questions or other topics you’d like to see us address.