How To Improve Your Business Website And Make It Run Smoothly
As a small-business owner, you might have thought about taking advantage of today’s technology and giving your business the best chance of success through your online presence. Owning a website is a good step in that direction. The majority of customers are more likely to trust a company with an established online presence. A professional, user-friendly website is, therefore, a crucial asset for your business. If you already own a business website and are looking for ways to improve it, here are some tips.
Make Your Website SEO Friendly
You might have the best website out there but if it is not search engine optimized, don’t expect anyone else to discover its greatness. Investing in a good SEO strategy to boost your website’s visibility is absolutely crucial for the success of your business. As a popular saying goes, if it doesn’t exist on Google then it might as well not exist. There are several components of SEO including Off-Page SEO, On-Page SEO, Technical and Local SEO. For local SEO, using a White Label Local SEO service would get you moving in the right direction.
In addition to that, you also need to make sure that the content you post on your website is readable by search engines. This involves including relevant keywords in your content, having good meta descriptions and SEO-optimized URLs, and having good quality images in your content. An effective SEO strategy signals to search engines what your website is all about and helps it to rank better on Google. Consistently ranking on search engines can help your business establish authority in your particular niche which leads to a higher rate of conversion.
Schedule Regular Website Maintenance
Website maintenance is crucial if you want your website to run smoothly. For instance, for a WordPress blog, a website maintenance checklist can include backing up your website data onto a secure server, deleting spam comments, running speed tests to see if your website loading time is optimal, fixing broken links, and ‘Page Not Found errors, and reviewing any security breaches. If you own a website with considerable traffic, then you should try to schedule regular maintenance after every 3 months. SEO audit is also a part of website maintenance as it can help you gauge which aspect of your website’s SEO needs improvement.
Your website’s loading speed will also determine your website’s Google ranking. According to Philadelphia WordPress Website Maintenance, slow loading speed considerably increases the bounce rate of your website and hence its ranking. Therefore, having regular maintenance will also detect speed lags and help fix them in real-time.
Mobile Phone Friendly Interface
An increasing number of internet traffic is now on mobile devices. This makes sense as smartphones have made accessing the internet more convenient. It’s way easier to just type a search query on your phone instead of taking out a laptop to do so. Therefore, if your site isn’t mobile phone friendly, you’ll have a hard time establishing your business presence.
Given this fact, Google has now updated its algorithms to prioritize mobile-friendly websites in its rankings. So mobile phone optimization is now absolutely essential for your business and website’s survival. Some of the basics of a mobile-friendly user interface include having a scrollable layout for easy readability, simple navigation, uncluttered web design, and image optimization for smaller screens. Mobile responsive design and mobile optimization are also two slightly different categories you need to be aware of. A mobile responsive design element will reformat your website’s layout according to the particular device your customer is viewing it on. Mobile optimization, on the other hand, is less specific and will reformat the website only for a generic mobile device.
Having an aesthetically pleasing, fast-loading website won’t be of much help if users feel lost after clicking on your URL. You need to make sure that navigation is easy and accessible, and your call to action is clearly visible. Apple iPhone’s success rests mainly on their software’s simple interface, and you need to apply the same principle for your website. To put the importance of navigation into perspective, how many times have you pressed ‘back’ after visiting a website that had no clear navigation system? The website might have had the best graphics but if it’s not functional for the user then it’s of little value.
You can improve your website’s navigation by ensuring that your search function works and that all of the buttons work properly. Nothing is more frustrating than clicking on a “submit” button that seems to be frozen and is nothing more than a block with text. Having a great navigation system can improve your site’s overall performance and customer retention.
With the majority of the world’s population now having access to the internet, this is the best time for you to harness the ability of the web to broaden your customer base. Investing and optimizing your business website will pay off in the long run, and boost your sales exponentially. As a website is your business’s metaphoric backbone, you should try your best to improve and optimize it so that it’s always running smoothly.