You may have started your business solely on social media due to being quick to get online, you already knew social media, the price being free is a great price, you didn't think you needed branding, and it's where all your customers were and still are today. You've since learned that part of branding and building your relationship online requires more than just social media. Your business requires a positive message that you control and your customers can find you quickly and easily on mobile search. With a website you have control over all aspects to promote your business positively online in the way you want by your online employee that works for you. This doesn't mean that social media isn't important. It is and you should not neglect it; just like you shouldn't neglect your website.
When a visitor comes to your website they decide within 5-8 seconds whether they will be staying on your website or abandoning your page. This is a very short span of time to gain someone's trust, interest, and show them a value to get them to learn more about your business.
Pictures can grab the attention of a user. Sliders produce quick images and can grab a persons attention. After looking at the statistics of 90+ websites we've built in Northwest Indiana in the last three years we've found less than 1% of users click on them. This means that this valuable real estate at the top of your homepage is often wasted. These distractions can hurt rather than help your website in keeping people interested in your content. When we removed our slider from our own page our conversions more than doubled. Does this mean we shouldn't have them? Not necessarily as they do have a place on your site. The place though may not be your home landing page. People are coming to your website for answers to their current problem. A slideshow designed for the masses may not be the best use of your screen real estate when the typically user doesn't spend more than five minutes on a website.
To be stronger online you need to evaluate what is working, what isn't, and identify areas of improvement. We did this with our slider on our own homepage where we more than doubled our conversion by removing this. We did this by showing the slider to half of the users and then not showing it to the other half. When we didn't show the slider we saw people were more engaged, contacted us, and visited more pages within our site. Testing like this can take time but for a higher conversion of your customers is worth the effort.
Thanks to Google Fonts and other like products the web is becoming visual from a typography standpoint. Headings and paragraphs are more legible and in a more readable format. We attest this to devices like Kindles and mobile phones with smaller screen sizes. All of the information and content on your website should not only be crisp and clear but optimal for reading. When you are finding a font for your website consider these points:
In business we always want to be responsive for our customer's needs. Your website should be able to quickly and easily adjust to their needs as well. No longer is having a mobile and desktop version the norm. A site that will adjust from the smallest to largest size is needed. This not only will help future proof your website but also give the best experience.
When it comes to being online Google has a great too for testing mobility of your site. You can test out your site or your competitors at https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/.
More than anything an image can improve your website. Stock photography is a great start with custom imagery being the optimal answer for being more personal with your customers. You'll want your images in a high quality format but balanced between the time it takes to load the information (speed matters).
When it comes to the modern web you want to make your page load as quickly as possible. You adjust your page and make every change Google recommends and have a great load time to the "computer". This time may not be optimal for your user. When you adjust based on their recommendations it's always best to test between making a computer happy and keeping your users happy. If you can do both then you are in a very good place. To test your page speed, you can use Google's PageSpeed Insights at https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/.
Often overlooked is a call-to-action to get a user to do a particular action. The action could be clicking on a specific link, subscribing to an email list, sharing content on social media, or a specific business process. Your call-to-action should be clear to the user of what you want them to do. It could be colored differently, bold, or have a fancy graphic to bring someone in.
When creating a call-to-action one item to not forget is the action should not be coded to just your homepage. It should exist throughout your site so that people know what the action is. This action could be the same on all pages or unique and different on pages.
When creating a site there are dozens of core items to think about. Many quick builders don't guide you through this process. Taking your time, establishing procedures, and breaking your project into phases will allow you to take a good site and make it great. If you want help with a leader in Northwest Indiana to converting and upgrading a website for an optimal sales process contact JM2 Webdesigners from Valparaiso (Valpo) Indiana. You can reach us at @BUSINESSPHONETOLLFREE@, email at @BUSINESSEMAILADDRESS@ or through our online contact form here.