We have all been there. We click on a listing and the site moves at a snail’s pace. We wait as the icon twirls a happy dance telling us to wait. The rage builds up as we continue to click on the site and it doesn’t load! Worse still, the site loads and blasts loud music, or endless pop-ups. After angrily clicking the close button and trying a different site, you ask, why do people have these terrible sites?
Everyone has experienced a terrible site at one point or another, and we all know a bad site when we see it. If your website is frustrating or angering your visitors, you are pushing sales and new clients out the door.
Having a great site is a necessity for any business owner! While many business owners don’t see themselves as web designers, you can upgrade your site in 3 easy steps. Follow these steps to have a better site today!
#1. Speed Up Your Site
Having a fast site isn’t just convenient, it is essential to rank your website in google search. Countless studies show that the longer your site takes to load, the more likely you are to lose customers. So how fast should your site be?
This study reported the ideal time is from 2 – 5 seconds, with each second after 2 increasing the chance of users abandoning the site. You can test your site page speed using Google’s free page speed insights.
Page speed insights also offer suggestions on how to improve your site speed. You can also use plugins on your site to improve the page speed.
Some easy ways to improve your site speed are:
- Use a lazy load for images. Large images can kill page speed, using lazy load plugins is an easy and fast way to improve your site speed.
- Remove unused plugins from your site. Every line of code can slow down your site, remove any unused plugins that you don’t use for your site.
- Use fast servers. The longer it takes for your site to connect to the server, the slower your site will be. This can be as easy as changing the server provider or increasing your plan to improve your server and site speed.
After speeding up your site, you will want to make sure that your website design is not turning away potential customers.
#2. Use Modern Layouts And Designs
Too many pop ups can scare away new visitors to your site. Outdated layouts can look like you are out of business. Simply put, badly designed sites can lose you money! Web design is important for any site, and making your site easy to navigate should be a top priority for a business owner.
Modern layouts are about whitespace, and clean simple layouts. Homepages flooded with images, text, pop ups will not only make your site hard to navigate but make your site seem less trust worthy. When laying out your home page make sure to have bold keyword headlines, and use color in an intentional way that draws attention to your calls to action.
Whitespace is a great way to draw attention to important images or copy. You also want neutral colors, that are easy to read on various screen sizes. Modern web design states that less is more. From the text, images, and interactive features, make your site easy to use. Your site should be a tool for customers to better make a decision on your product, by combining the clear copy, and compelling images.
It should be easy to navigate and for customers to find what they need. Information that is vital to your business should be on your homepage, as well as contact information. Make sure that your website doesn’t irate your customers and doesn’t have pop ups or music that plays instantly.
Choosing the right theme for your brand is essential to having a great site. It can be hard to choose the right theme for your site with hundreds of thousands of themes to pick from. Make sure the theme and layout of your site is user friendly, serves the site purpose well, offer customization, and is SEO friendly. If you aren’t sure if the theme is right for your site, make sure to read reviews and see what others experience with this theme is, and that they offer support.
Whether your business is showcasing your portfolio, finding new clients, or even selling a product, having a well-designed website is essential to your brand. By making your website clean and easy to navigate you can reduce your bounce rates, and make it easy for customers to use your business! You can learn more about designing a portfolio website here.
#3. Creating User First Content
Your website from start to finish should guide your customer to completing a transaction, or appointment with you when they leave your site. While many businesses owners want their site to reflect the business, your site should do most if not all the selling for you.
Many businesses have an ideal customer, and know what their customers need or want to know. With this is mind, sites that serve their users first not only have better conversion rates, but can build loyal customers. Make a customer profile and run your site through the eyes of a user, and make any changes to fit those customers.
Here are tips on the user content your site needs:
- SEO optimized pages with keywords that your audience is searching
- Content about your services or products and what makes it different
- Content that helps customers on the fence learn more about what you provide
Web pages should be SEO optimized with the keywords that have traffic and search intent for your products. You can also use your blog to share information about your services, or related information customers need to know.
Writing blogs for your business or brand is not as easy as it sounds! It requires in-depth knowledge and understanding of your ideal customers, and what information they are trying to find!
Blogging is a great way to generate business as it showcases your experience, and educates your audience. Popular blogs do not parrot the same pieces of advice as they share an interesting story and opinion to the world that is useful to clients.
When writing a blog ask yourself the following questions:
- Is this information useful to my audience?
- Is this information relevant?
- Is this information unique?
Whether you blog for a brand or a business it’s important to build a personal connection with clients. Life updates, or tips or tricks to using your products and services are great pieces of content that can earn you more money.
If properly formatted and researched, a single blog can boost your google keyword rankings and traffic to your site. It can help build your reputation as a trusted expert in your field, and earn you publicity. When you write and publish your blogs, make sure to share them on your social media channels and promote them to get more eyes and views on your business.
Content marketing is an important way to humanize your business, and gain more customers. When you write a blog make sure to have these customers in mind to make sure that you are providing information they need! Blogs should be formatted correctly, as this can improve your site ranking, and help you gain more clients.
Summary
Upgrading your site is a necessity for business owners looking to make more sales! A poorly designed site will leave your customers frustrated and will lose you money in lost sales! Upgrading your site will help you grow your brand faster than ever before. Making these easy changes will decrease your bounce rate, and can lead to new clients!
3 Easy Ways To Upgrade Your Site Are:
- Speed Up Your Site: Having slow sites can decrease the number of users on your site. It will also lead to higher bounce rates and lower conversions. Poor site speeds can also hurt your site rankings!
- Use Modern Layouts and Designs: Clear copy, high quality images of your business make for a smooth site experience that can lead to more conversions. Make your site easy to navigate and find the information clients need!
- Create User First Content: From selecting the right keywords, to the image, videos or blogs your writ your customer should be the inspiration for your website. Make your website with their experience in mind for a better converting site.
How will you upgrade your site?
About the Author!
Catherine Way graduated from Michigan State University with her Bachelor of Advertising, with a specialization in Graphic Design. She is a content marketer for business, mortgage, and real estate industries. She has written real estate articles for Silver Doctors, The Paper Source, Active Rain, and Progressing Income. She enjoys finding new creative outlets through writing, designing, dancing, modeling and more. She currently writes and reports for Prime Plus Mortgages.