Does your website feel a little dated? Or are you suffering from low web traffic or poor conversion rates? Then it might be time to give your website a makeover. It can be risky to change your website because you’ll put a lot of time and money into it, and it’s difficult to determine whether your changes will actually give you the results you’re hoping for.
If you’re not sure where to get started, keep reading and learn about five different ways you can overhaul your small business site.
Create Better Visuals
A website is a predominantly visual experience. If your website has bad visuals, then it’s a bad website—plain and simple. But what exactly are “good visuals?”
A website that’s aesthetically pleasing typically features these things:
- Crisp text that’s well-sized and easy to read
- A balanced color palette
- Lots of photos or graphics (they oftentimes consume a large portion of the page)
- Minimal page clutter
While redesigning your website, you might benefit from hiring a web designer to create a better visual style for your site. A web designer has the know-how and tools to implement the right combination of visual elements, while also staying within the parameters of your brand.
If you don’t have the money to hire a web designer, you should find a website building platform and use one of the templates to shape your site. The one drawback to using a website builder is that it’s easy for your site to look “template-ish” if you don’t add enough visual elements. Try and put your own personal spin on whichever template you choose and do your best to make it look unique.
SEO Implementation
Search engine optimization (SEO) is undoubtedly the most important online tool for your website to leverage. SEO is all about boosting your website’s visibility and authority. When you search for a product or service on Google or Bing, the results are ranked from most relevant to least relevant. SEO is the practice of boosting your website’s search ranking for all searches that are relevant to your company. A high ranking is great for website promotion, and may lead to higher web traffic and more conversions.
Take caution before you make significant changes to your site, especially if you’ve haven’t been keeping an eye on your website’s search rankings. It’s possible that you’re ranking very high on a certain search query, and you could lose that ranking if you make blind changes to your site. Consider doing a professional SEO audit. A SEO audit will show you where you’re ranking well, and which queries you could potentially rank highly for. Then you’ll be able to create web content that’s tailored to those queries.
Optimize Your Site
It’s important that you optimize your site, but what should you optimize it for?
- Speed: Research suggests that users are more likely to leave a website if it’s too slow. Make sure you’re hosting your site on a fast and reliable web server. Most website builders have fast servers that host your site, but if you built your website from scratch, you should consider using a third-party host.
- Mobile Devices: Nowadays, lots of people use the internet on their smartphones and tablets. Make sure that your website is optimized for viewing on mobile platforms.
- Social Media: Social media is the main source of information for a large number of people. Be sure your company has a social media presence, and also make sure that your website incorporates social media share buttons so users can share your content.
- Google My Business: If your company is a brick-and-mortar business, you should list your company on Google My Business so it’ll be more visible on Google searches and on Google Maps.
Focus on Conversions
This is a pretty simple tip, but it’s easy to forget about. Just because a user is visiting your website, doesn’t mean they’re going to make a purchase through your website (in other words, web traffic does not amount to sales). Make sure your website has “call-to-actions” that entice viewers to purchase your product. A good CTA should make the user conscious of these things:
- Their need for the product
- Their need to buy the product soon
Streamline Your Site Structure
Last, but not least, make sure your website has a pyramid structure. A pyramid structure features a home page with a minimal number of tabs and information, and each tab leads to a web page with a successively larger amount of information. Incorporating a pyramid structure is a great way to ensure a pleasant user experience for site visitors.
As long as you take these five tips into consideration, you’re sure to give your website a successful makeover with a very minimal amount of stress.
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