A good business website accomplishes several things at once. It provides your business with a highly visible presence on the Search Engine Results Page. It provides potential customers with information about your products, services, and values. It attracts traffic, generates leads, and bolsters your brand’s reputation.
That’s quite a mandate, so naturally, your website will need to have all the right components in place. As you take stock of your website performance, it’s worth pausing to ask: Is there anything missing that might make your site even more effective?
Key Elements Your Site Might Be Missing
1) Contact information.
A good rule of thumb: You should provide clear, easy-to-spot contact information on every page of your business website (not just the home page or the contact page).
There are a couple of reasons for this. One, getting your NAP (name, address, and phone number) out there helps with local SEO. And two, it ensures that potential customers can easily call you to make an appointment or ask a question, irrespective of which page they’re on at any given moment.
2) Calls to action.
Along with contact information, every page of your site should include clear calls to action, guiding the reader to take the next step: Signing up for your email list, buying a product, scheduling a consultation, or whatever else.
Again, the goal is that you’re constantly leading your visitors deeper and deeper into the sales funnel, no matter which page they happen to be on.
3) Fast loading time.
Research has confirmed it again and again: The longer your site takes to load, the less likely it is that you’ll retain visitors. As a general principle, we recommend ensuring a site that loads in no more than four seconds.
If you haven’t run some basic speed and performance tests lately, do so now, verifying optimal speeds across multiple browser and device types.
4) Meta data.
Back-end SEO is an important aspect of any good website. Specifically, it’s important to have a meta description and a meta title, both of which indicate to the search algorithms how your site should be classified. Additionally, meta data provides insight to search engine users, giving them some indication of what the site is actually about.
Ensure that you have metadata in place, providing an accurate description of your page content. Use keywords judiciously, and avoid any duplicate content, even on multiple pages that are similar in their scope.
5) Mobile friendliness.
It’s astonishing to see how many websites still lack basic mobile-readiness, even in the year 2023. Sites that haven’t been updated since the mid-00s may be difficult to navigate on smaller screens, something that frustrates users and exacerbates your bounce rate.
If you haven’t been through the website redesign process recently, it’s time to do so, and to ensure that mobile optimization is at the top of your wish list. Again, it also pays to simply take a few minutes to verify mobile design, accessing your site across various browser and device types.
6) Email signups.
Your website should work harmoniously with other aspects of your digital marketing strategy, including email marketing.
One way to make that happen is by ensuring there are places throughout the site for your visitors to opt-in/subscribe to your newsletter. Again, ensure a clear call to action, and be sure you’re conveying the value of joining the email list. When done right, this can be a great way to turn your website into a lead generation machine.
7) Good content.
By now it almost goes without saying, but great content is essential for website efficacy. The best content:
- Engages readers, keeping them on the page and lowering your bounce rate.
- Educates and informs them, turning your visitors into qualified traffic.
- Conveys your thought leadership and industry knowledge, helping you earn buyer trust.
- Helps you achieve higher placement in relevant searches.
If you haven’t done a content audit recently, do so now, ensuring content is helpful, accurate, up to date, formatted for readability, original, and sprinkled with relevant keywords.
8) Social proof.
How do you ensure that your visitors actually trust your brand or product? One way is to include social proof throughout the site. This can be testimonials, or it can be links to your Google Reviews profile. What’s important is clearly conveying to your visitors that other consumers have done business with you and had a great experience.
Enhance Your Site Performance Today
Does your website lack any of the ingredients necessary for full effectiveness? If so, take a few minutes to audit it today. Then, reach out to the enCOMPASS team about redesigning or simply adapting your current site. We’d love to tell you more about the ways we can make your site an effective part of your marketing efforts.
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