How to make your website work for and not against you?
It is the norm these days for B2B businesses to have a website to showcase their company. However, many of our clients come to us with poorly designed sites that are lacking in performance , intuitive navigation and little to no engagement or lead generation. This can result in visitors leaving a website immediately as they struggle to find what they were looking for.
Having a website does not automatically mean that digital visitors and leads will come. There is an art and science to building and benefiting from your online presence. Here are our 5 top tips to increase the success of your website:
- WordPress – whether you like it or not WordPress is the best open source content management system used by 60%+ of all sites. WordPress websites typically rank 30% higher on Google. If your site is built using an alternative solution eg, Wix, Squarespace, Joomla or Drupal then you are starting 30% behind anyone who is and that may include your competition.
- Content – content is still king when it comes to websites. Make sure that you site contains clear and concise information about what you do, how you do it and why you do it. To improve SEO ensure that your text includes keywords in headings that people would use to search for your products or services in Google. Your text should be written to show your niche expertise, in plain language with short sentences and paragraphs. Cross reference other pages on your website to keep visitors from going back to Google. If you have quality content, higher ranking sites may link back to your articles and this can lift your site closer to the elusive page 1 of google search results.
- Activity – a popular site for visitors and for search engines is an active site. Keep your site regularly updated with new content to help your ranking and engagement with repeat visitors. Start with a simple plan of regular content updates across your website and social media platforms covering your products, services, case studies, projects, news and blog articles. The more good content you produce and share, the higher Google will rank you and the more likely your visitors are to share them.
- Hosting – all hosting companies are not created equal and it is important to choose the right hosting company for your website. For example, you want a host with good server speeds so that visitors do not have to wait a long time for your site to download or more likely leave before it does; 24-hour support, 7 days a week in case something goes wrong and; reliability so that you can have the peace of mind that your site will always be online. We recommend Siteground.
- Maintenance – unfortunately like most things, websites also need regular (monthly) maintenance. If you do not maintain your website, you leave it at risk from hackers who target websites using bots to exploit out of date software to gain access. We offer maintenance packages for peace of mind that protect your site and speed optimisations.
If you are not receiving customer leads from your website, or you do not rank amongst your competitors for relevant searches, please contact us for more information on how we may be able to assist you.