A successful online presence can be an important part of gaining new customers, keeping existing ones and sharing your employer's mission with a public audience. Since best practices and trends in digital marketing change quickly, updating the company's website is one way to do this. You can also improve a company's website to help the business achieve objectives, such as increased online security and brand recognition.
In this article, we explain why enhancing a website is beneficial and provide 15 website improvement tips to help you reach a wider audience.
Why make improvements to your website?
Making improvements to your website can help you reach your audience more effectively. With a well-designed website, you can better leverage online marketing strategies, for example. You can also increase brand awareness through increased web traffic. You might even increase revenues and profitability when you improve your website, depending on the context and type of improvements you make. Improving your website can help you reach your individual career goals and organizational objectives.
1. Understand your users
Understanding your users' wants and needs can be the first step toward improving your website. When you do, you can tailor the online experience to meet or exceed their expectations. Audiences might interact with your website differently so it might be useful to do market research to better understand your customer base. Consider working with a team and collaborating to identify objectives based on your specific online audience.
2. Plan intentionally
Developing an intentional plan for your website's growth can help ensure you're meeting your objectives effectively and efficiently. Consider brainstorming online strategies with your team] or creating a task force to identify meaningful goals for your online presence. Try to match evidence-based best practices with your goals to maximize your website's measurable outcomes.
3. Stay organized
Try to stay organized when you're developing improvements to your website and be sure to keep your website itself organized too. From an internal perspective, a clear and organized development cycle can support frequent site reviews and updates. From a user point of view, a well-organized website can make it easier to find the information you need, engage with site content and make purchases. Consider examining your site's navigation tools such as menus and sidebars and evaluating their ease of use. Try using drop-down or nested navigation to help the mobile version of your site resemble the desktop version.
4. Be consistent
Replicating your website's basic organization on each page can make it easier for your users to navigate your site and perform actions like engaging with content and making purchases. Try to follow a predictable pattern in each page's layout. Using consistent design elements such as fonts, shapes and colors can help your users find and access parts of your website more easily. This idea is valuable when creating mobile responsive design as well because consistent elements can smooth the transition between mobile and desktop use.
5. Use responsive design
Many users will access your website from both a desktop and mobile device, so it's important to build your site with responsive design principles in mind. This means your site can adapt to various screen sizes while making it easy to see all important information and graphics. Other features such as enhanced visibility for important icons, like the shopping cart function, can make it easier for mobile users to navigate your site. You might also review your mobile site to ensure crucial action items like an "order now" button are clear and available on every page they visit.
6. Test frequently
Because best practices for web optimization change frequently, you might want to revisit your website to be sure it's as up-to-date as possible. Consider using a set schedule for testing and assessing your website for appearance and functionality. You might use a strategy called A/B testing, in which you compare the results from two different websites and make changes according to what you find.
7. Speed up your page
A website that loads and responds quickly is often relatively successful because it's easy for users to locate the information they need. An efficient website can also make it easier for users to take action, such as visiting another page or making a purchase. To optimize your website speed, use a free online service to investigate your current site speed. Then, take steps such as compressing image files to increase your site's speed.
8. Generate high-quality content
High-quality content is another factor that can impact your website's success. Content details will depend on your industry and focus; however, the most effective websites follow some of the same patterns. Keeping material easy to read, for example, can help engage readers who are busy and might want to scan your content. Using effective headings can also attract readers' attention and help them find necessary information. Try to integrate SEO keywords to help increase the chances your site will appear early in search engine results.
9. Eliminate distractions
Another improvement to consider is simplifying your website to help readers focus on the most important information. Consider omitting features such as complicated animations, extra images and colors outside the brand profile. You may wish to use a focus group or internal task force to review your website and see if simplification is the right strategy for the organization for which you work.
10. Integrate social proof
Social proof refers to buyers' tendency to trust others' opinions about products and services. You can use social proof to improve your website by including favorable reviews to show your readers that others have purchased and recommended your products. You can also include links to your social media channels to leverage social proof to your example, especially if you have many followers.
11. Use call-to-action interaction
Clearly showing which actions a viewer can take after visiting your site can help improve the likelihood that they will do so. For example, using a highly visible font and color for the "buy now" button on your e-commerce store can increase the likelihood that visitors make a purchase. Other calls to action might include signing up for an email newsletter, subscribing to a service or following the brand on social media.
12. Use graphics and images well
Graphics and images can help enhance your web presence by creating a pleasant visual experience and communicating important information to your site visitors. If you use stock photos, locate quality images that reflect the brand and desired customer impact. Realistic imagery that complements your content is often the most successful choice. Compress the images to increase site speed and keep your layout simple.
13. Optimize your homepage
Making your homepage easy to navigate can help your users find the information they are looking for and take action, such as signing up for an email list or making a purchase. Try dividing your homepage into approximately three to five sections that correspond with the most important parts of your site. Be sure the company message and user benefits are clear immediately, because site visitors often decide whether to continue engaging with a website based on their homepage appearance and navigation.
14. Use white space effectively
Spacing elements effectively can provide another visual improvement for your webpage by guiding your reader's line of sight to the most relevant information first. You can use white space, or negative space, to separate elements, and you can also use proximity, or closeness, to show which parts of a page relate to one another. You can also use white space to isolate and help identify call-to-action elements such as buttons and links.
15. Be relatable
Including information about your team can help humanize your operations to your users. By providing a page that includes team pictures and biographical information, for example, you might evoke a sense of trust that can encourage your visitors to take action. Consider using a landing page with team names and photos and individual team member pages for search engine optimization.
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