SEM, SEO, social media marketing, local listings — at the end of the day, what all of these digital marketing efforts come down to is getting more traffic to your business — whether it is actual foot traffic into your location or web traffic to your landing page.
But, in order to see success in all areas of digital marketing you need to go back to the basics. What happens once a user conducts a search? They find your website through an ad or a blog article — all of which direct them to your website. Is your website providing an answer to the question they are looking for? Is the navigation user-friendly? Is there a clear call-to-action, or are you sending users jumping through hoops to merely contact you?
Your website is the most important piece of the puzzle and the base of all your digital marketing efforts! As a Ferocious Media Digital Media Consultant, I get to review websites for businesses of all shapes and sizes every single day. What I can tell you is that the majority of the websites I look at need some improvement and are usually missing some of the key components. But don’t worry, even if your website has a poor design or isn’t user-friendly, there is still hope.
Here are five simple tips to help enhance your website:
- Make sure you have the correct contact information prominent in the header of all pages of your website. Too many times the business owner expects the user to find their “contact us” page. Make it easier for them to pick up the phone!
- Ensure your website is responsive. With a trillion searches conducted globally on Google, over half of those searches happen on smartphones than on desktops and laptops. That means your website had better be mobile friendly! A responsive website provides a seamless user experience across all devices and screen sizes, and is specifically optimized for conversions on each device.
- Answer important questions, immediately. What areas do you service? How many years have you been in business? Do you take credit cards? You can include all this information in prominent places on the website. Focus on where a user might first look, or what pages they might navigate to. Having this important information easily accessible is proving to them they are in the right place, and they don’t have to leave to visit another website.
- Highlight your business’ main services or products on the homepage. This gives users an idea of your business’ main focus and a clear path to learn more about each one by linking them to the inner page. Once on the inner pages of the website, it’s important to have unique content. Having unique, concise content helps with organic search results.
- Pictures, pictures and pictures. Having high quality photos will go a long way and grab the user’s attention. A user can usually tell the difference between stock photos and personal, unique business photos. You want to portray your business authentically online, giving the user an idea of how your business operates. For example, for an HVAC business, it’s beneficial to show images of your team in gear or your business trucks with your business logo.
The above five tips are becoming less of a trend, and more of website best practices to follow. Thankfully, the Ferocious Media team offers website design options that keep these tips top of mind.
