In Luke’s article for this month, he talks about some simple methods businesses can use to improve website quality. At Absolute, we have worked on a wide range of websites for businesses in nearly every type of industry. Most people can look at a given website and decide whether or not it looks good or pleases the eye. But what gets missed often times is the true purpose of a website and its ability to drive business and function as a sales tool.

Websites can serve very different purposes depending on the type of business. If your business sells product online, then the main purpose is obviously driving e-commerce and getting visitors to the shopping cart to purchase. Many businesses, however, use websites for lead generation. In that case the purpose is to peak their interest and drive them to the contact page for an inquiry. It is paramount that your site is built with your target visitors in mind and leads them to take a desired action, regardless of what that is. Here are five tips for improving your site’s ability to reach your target visitors and drive them to becoming a customer:

  1. Call to Action – Every quality website should have calls to action. These are statements encouraging visitors to do something specific. Whether that’s telling a visitor to order online or contact you via phone or email, if you don’t tell your visitors to become customers and how to do so easily, chances are they won’t. Your home page should definitely have a call to action along with any other pages that visitors may land on through search engines, social media, etc.
  2. Ease of the Action – If your website has strong calls to action, the next step is to put yourself in the shoes of typical visitors. How easy is it to actually do what the calls to action are telling visitors to do? If you’re trying to get your visitors to purchase something from your site, your shopping cart checkout process should be as simple and quick as possible. If you want them to call or email you, your number and email address should be easy to find and clickable from a mobile device. If you’re trying to get them to visit you, you should have an interactive map embedded on your site showing your location. Make it as simple as possible for your visitors to complete your desired action.
  3. SEO – Another simple way to improve upon your site that Luke touched on in his article is through search engine optimization. A study done by Forrester found that 93% of all internet traffic comes from a search engine. If your business isn’t showing up when searching for keywords and topics that are relevant to you, then you are missing out on an enormous amount of potential traffic. An easy way to improve search engine presence is verifying your company with Google so that you show up in the Google business listings. Another simple method is to update your page titles and written content to improve your search listing.
  4. Third-Party Tools – Monitoring and evaluating your website traffic is one of the best ways to find out what pages and aspects of your website need to be improved. There are a variety of third-party analytics tools to choose from, but two of the most effective free options are Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics. These tools will tell you if there are any technical errors in your site that are making it difficult for Google to crawl. They will also tell you where your website visitors are coming from, which pages they are going to, how long they spend on each page and which page they are on when they leave your site. All of this data will give you a good idea of the most effective ways to drive traffic to your site, what pages are performing well and which ones need to be improved.
  5. Speed – Another essential aspect for website quality is the loading speed of your pages. It’s 2016 and people no longer have the patience for slow loading sites. Improving speed is a little more advanced than my previous recommendations, but if you’re feeling brave you can try optimizing your website code, installing caching systems for your content management system and compressing the size of the images and videos on your site. If those options sound like they’re in a foreign language to you, then you’ll probably want to get assistance from web professionals (such as Absolute Marketing Group).

If you need assistance improving your website so it functions as a powerful sales tool, give us a call at 701-478-1111 and ask to speak with a marketing advisor or visit absolutemg.com/contact.