How to make the most of your website

Your website is the most important element when marketing your business and your products online. It doesn’t matter how effective your traffic-generating strategies are, if your website disappoints, there is no way that you can convert your visitors to paying customers. It’s crucial that you pay attention to every detail as each matter. I cannot stress enough the importance of making sure that your website is impressive, as mentioned in an earlier post, it only takes about 1/10th of a second for visitor to decide if they like your website or not. Your website must have a wow factor and it must compel your visitors to respond to a call to action immediately. You want them to join your email marketing list, take surveys, like you on Facebook, follow you on Twitter, and ultimately, purchase a product or order a service.

Here are some tips on how to make the most of your website:

Ensure it’s search engine-friendly

Although making your website attractive and user-friendly is important, you need to pay close attention to what matters most; getting people to first visit your website. In order to attract organic traffic from the likes of Google, your website must be search engine-friendly. SEO, which stands for search engine optimisation, is the process of achieving high search engine ranking based on what the search engines consider the most important to Internet users. Once you have traffic to your website, you have potential clients.

Update your content and web design frequently

Give your visitors valid reasons to visit your website over and over again. The key here is giving them something new each time they visit your website. Write new articles, offer free reports, post new videos or audios, or tweak your web design every now and then. Not only is fresh content great for keeping visitors interested, it’s the most important element in getting search engines to also rank your website (See ‘Why Content is Still King’). Find yourself a good copywriter and add blog posts to your website at least once or twice a week. Pay attention to the comments and feedback that you get from your visitors to know the things that you need to update on a regular basis to keep them interested.

Use clear call to actions

If you’re able to attract huge traffic but fail to improve your conversion rate, consider revising your call to action. Are they positioned in the hot zones? Are compelling? Do they grab your attention? Learn how to write an effective ‘call to action’ in a way that you can target human emotions; know how to successfully push emotional buttons. Also, communicate the benefits that you can offer. Don’t forget to offer rewards like free ebooks or discounts – this will entice visitors to make contact and improve your conversion rate in no time.  To find out more about ‘call to actions’ and website hot zones on my previous post ‘Essential Guide for Successful Website Design’

Pay attention to your ‘About Us’ and ‘Contact’ Page.

Internet users are very cautious of online business as there is always a risk of getting scammed. Eliminate their fears by carefully writing your ‘about us’ and ‘contact’ pages. Include your company’s address, phone number, and email address. This information will give your visitors an assurance that you’re running a legitimate business and that you are contactable should they have any problems with your service or products.

Promote your website through social media marketing.

Boost your web traffic by up to tenfold by promoting it on some of the biggest social networking sites (Facebook, Google+, Pintrest, Twitter, Linkedln, and Instagram). Through Social Media Marketing, you can tap into the enormous amount of traffic that these sites generate on a daily basis. Also, having Facebook and Google+ account is a good way to establish relationship with your online visitors. These social networks are a great venue to provide updates to, and maintain regular dialogue with clients and customers. Find out more about how you can utilise social media to your advantage with my earlier post ‘Take advantage of Social Media to boost your website’.

Make it user-friendly.

Gone are the days when elaborate, extremely difficult to navigate websites were preferred by some Internet users. Today, making websites user-friendly is the name of the game. If users don’t find the information they are looking for in your website after three clicks on their mouse, you’ll lose them. So, make your website look very organized. Use drop down menus and link all the pages to your home page to help your visitors not get lost along the way.

Ask for feedback and suggestions

Smart website owners know that the best way to identify their areas of opportunity is to ask the users. Encourage your visitors to leave feedback or suggestion on how you can make your website even better.

Would you like to make the most of your website but just don’t have the time or skills to do all the legwork? Then, let us here at Ignition Media help you out. Aside from web design and web development, we also offer social marketing services, web maintenance, web hosting, logo design, email marketing, SEO, and blogging. Feel free to send an enquiry through our contact us page or call and speak with my direct on 07 55 687 515.