Business websites are standard these days, regardless of size or industry.
Without a website, businesses will not be taken seriously.
Here are 6 critical elements that business owners require when building or renovating a website:
1. Happy
Here’s a telling fact, most visitors formulate an opinion of your business within 50 milliseconds of first landing on your website.
Since most website visitors (both new and returning) will land on your home page before doing anything else, relevance and readability are crucial.
2. Contact information
More than 50% of commercial websites do not yet have your contact information. clearly listed on their website. Often times, this is all your visitors are looking for.
Bottom line: make it easy for them to contact you. The more digs and clicks they have to do, the more likely they will annoy them and quickly scrap your business.
3. Visual stimulation
Again, first impressions are very important to your business website. If your website doesn’t look visually appealing, a large percentage of your visitors won’t even give your business a chance, even though you’re the best and only logical choice for them.
Visual content, such as images, videos, and logos, is often much more engaging and helps your visitors visualize what you offer. For example, viewers can retain up to 95% of the information in a video compared to only 10% of the same message in written form. You don’t need to overload your pages with videos and images, but high-quality images will pay off.
4. CTA
It’s 2020, your website should be more than just an online billboard. If you want your website to become an income magnet for your business, a clear and compelling call to action is your best hope to propel them in the right direction.
A call to action can be any of the following; Sign up for our newsletter, shop now, start your trial, sign up for a snack, create a membership, request a callback, request more information, make a phone call, or download a file.
In truth, the list goes on and on. Knowing what you want your visitors to do next is a crucial step on the road to conversion. At the very least, a clear call to action will catch the eye even when the user is flipping through the information.
If you don’t point them in the right direction, they may end up navigating to a competitor’s website, which is the last thing you want.
5. Access to social networks
Social media plays a huge role in the success of business websites these days and now works as a marketing and promotional tool for small businesses. Since most of the population is already on social media and spends more than an hour a day there, it’s critical that you give your visitors the ability to connect with you on your company’s social media accounts.
Encourage your website visitors to “stay connected” with you and receive updates by following you on their social media. Social networks are free and very effective for a company to add value to its target market by offering advice, training, media, promotions or discounts.
6. SEO best practices
A visually appealing website with good content is useless if it has no visitors. Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the best weapons you have at your disposal.
Having strong SEO built into your site will help you improve your search engine rankings. Over 90% of all website traffic comes from the first page of search results. What’s even better than this is that the traffic that comes from this is usually the best because they are actively searching for a business like yours, either by location or by business type.
There are more than 200 data metrics that help determine page rank. Some of the highest priority factors are: backlinks, keyword optimization, and Google My Business information. And since mobile devices are now the bulk of web traffic, you’d better consider mobile SEO factors like voice searches and location searches.
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