Ensuring your website works for you is important if you’re trying to grow your business. Although many marketing efforts focus on the internet, a well-designed and functional website can help you succeed in ways other channels simply can’t. From improving your website’s load times to updating the design elements, many changes will help your business grow through its online presence.
Clean up your navigation menu.
Clean up your navigation menu. Your navigation should be simple, easy to use, and consistent across all website pages. It should also be easy to find on the page (like right under the logo above the top of the fold). Oftentimes, people get stuck on a website because they can’t find what they need or don’t know where things are.
To help prevent this problem, don’t take up too much space with your main navigation bar and submenus. If you need to include a lot of links, consider using menu buttons or dropdown menus instead of putting them all in one long list as shown below:
Optimize for mobile devices.
Mobile devices are used more than desktops, and your website should be optimized for them. Responsive design makes your site look good on all devices, including smartphones and tablets. You can also use a theme that is specifically designed to work well on mobile devices. If you don’t want to make changes to the code of your existing theme, you can use tools like Google Analytics to see how people interact with the site on different types of phones – this will help you decide where there might be problems that need fixing.
Optimize your site load times.
We’ve all been there: you’re ready to make a purchase, but the page takes forever to load. As soon as you click “check out,” your mind begins to wander, and suddenly, you’re on a different website altogether. As a result, you’ve lost interest in whatever product you were about to buy—or worse, it makes you angry that the site wasted so much of your time with its loading speed.
Page load times are critical for all web users because they impact every step of the customer journey and contribute directly to conversions and retention rates. A study from Kissmetrics reveals that each extra second of page load time results in up to 7 percent fewer conversions from search engine queries.*
So how can small businesses optimize their sites? The first step is ensuring that pages have fewer external calls (i.e., links that connect back outside of your domain). These types of calls slow down how quickly content loads when visitors view; therefore, reducing them will improve overall performance metrics like conversion rate (CR) while impacting customer satisfaction metrics like average order value (AOV).
Use a strong Call to Action (CTA).
You can also use a strong CTA to help guide customers to the next step in the sales funnel. For example, if you are selling a product that offers free shipping, try adding an image of a bag being packed up with the words “Shop Now” as your CTA. This type of action-oriented imagery will help drive more traffic to your site and increase revenue without spending money on ads or pay-per-click fees.
In addition, make sure that your CTAs are relevant to your audience and easy for them to understand what they will get once they click on them (e.g., download our free guide).
Improve your website’s content.
Let’s talk about content. You’ve probably heard the phrase “content is king,” and you know that it’s true—but did you know that content is also the most important thing to consider in the process of growing your business?
- Content helps you get found in search engines.
- Content helps you convert visitors into customers.
- Content builds trust with your customers and loyalty with them over time.
Use persuasive copywriting to guide customers along the sales funnel.
You should also use persuasive copywriting to guide customers along the sales funnel. A good way to do this is by using a strong CTA (the call-to-action that asks for an action, such as a phone number, email address or form submission). A strong CTA can be used at each stage of your sales funnel so that customers know exactly what they need to do next.
Employ A/B testing with customer segmentation.
- A/B testing is a method of comparing two versions of a webpage to improve the performance of your website.
- Customer segmentation helps you identify the most valuable segments based on their purchasing history, behavioral patterns, and other data points.
- A/B testing can help you identify which segments are most valuable to tailor your messages accordingly. For example, if you have an email marketing strategy and want it to be effective for everyone, send emails about upcoming events or products that people may be interested in buying. But if you’re running an online store like Amazon or eBay where customers are browsing products they might purchase at any time instead of looking at specific items they want (such as concert tickets), then it may be better to only target those who visit frequently or who have purchased something from your site recently because they are more likely to buy again soon.
Make your website design consistent with all marketing materials.
Consistency is important to your website’s success. If you want to build trust and brand identity, your website should match the rest of your company’s marketing materials. This means that it should be consistent in tone, layout, and design and include similar information as other sites owned by your business.
It also means that if you’re targeting an audience with a specific demographic, such as millennials or retirees, then all their products need to speak directly to them in their language—not just content-wise but conceptually too! The easiest way for customers to get confused or turned off by a website is when there isn’t any consistency between one section of content on one page and another area on another page — especially if those two sections belong together under one umbrella topic title (e.g., “Healthy Eating”).
Update your website regularly, using responsive web design techniques.
Now that you know how important it is to keep your website up-to-date, let’s talk about ways to use responsive web design techniques to ensure it looks good on all devices.
Responsive web design is a technique that allows your website to adapt to different screen sizes. This method allows designers to create separate layouts to accommodate various resolutions and orientations. In other words, they build separate designs based on the device being used and display them as needed. This approach offers several advantages:
- It makes sure your site looks great no matter what size screen someone might be viewing it on;
- It helps ensure that users can easily find what they’re looking for; and
- It maximizes usability by making navigation more intuitive
Updates to your website can help you grow, especially if they are done in conjunction with other marketing efforts.
As a business owner, you always look for ways to grow your business. Web site changes can help you do just that. While you may think that making updates to your website is only about making it look nicer or more professional, there are actually many advantages of updating your site beyond aesthetics.
For example, web content can be optimized to appear higher in search engine listings. Updating the content on your website can also help improve customer satisfaction and conversion rates. A well-designed website will have an intuitive user experience and easy navigation so visitors can find what they need quickly and easily while browsing through your pages; this way they won’t lose interest before they find what they came for!
We hope you’ve enjoyed this overview of some of the key changes that can be made to your website. Remember, though, that a great deal depends on your own unique situation and business needs. If you are unsure which changes are right for you, consulting an expert or looking at examples of websites in your industry that have been successful with their updates may be helpful.
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