While it seems like a no-brainer, there are still many websites out there that are not mobile friendly, despite the fact that over 50% of the people coming to your site are on cell phones and smaller devices. Chances are, if you built a site several years ago before the technology had advanced to the point where making a responsive design was possible, your website probably does not display well on mobile devices. In the early days, we would build a separate site for Mobile, so at least people could see most of your content. With the advent of responsive design, we no longer need to do that and our website should display well on all devices, desktops, mobile phone, pads, etc.
Pro Tip: Even if you are using a responsive theme, you still need to review all your pages as some need to be tweaked to be truly mobile friendly.
Getting people to your website is not enough, you want people to act. So if you’re an e-commerce site, you want people to buy things. If you are a service business, you want people to contact you and use your services. If you are a nonprofit, you want donations. So it is also very important to have a call to action, this may be just a button where people are sent where you want them to go. You shouldn’t have to hunt for this call to action, it should be front and center on your website and in many cases available on every page. With nonprofits as an example, you should have a donate button somewhere on most pages (and of course in your main menu).
Pro Tip: if you are using WordPress, most page builders have a built-in element for call to actions. They typically have a nice colored background which that draws people’s attention and a button. These work very well.
If you want to succeed, people should be able to find what they’re looking for very quickly. The way you do this is by having a simple, clear navigation menu. And, unless your website contains thousands of pages, it is always a good idea to have all your pages available within a couple of clicks. I have sat in on many test sessions, and the further levels down pages are, the fewer people will visit them.
Pro Tip: your navigation is one of the most important factors of your website, so keep it simple and clear. I was recently on a site where they had some of their key pages in the footer, not at the top of the page. People don’t have time to go looking for the content they want. So make sure your essential pages are in the menu at the top of your page.
If you want your website to succeed, you need to get have solid content. Also, you should be adding to your site as often as possible. Many people come to me with questions about their search engine rankings. At RooSites we focus on white hat techniques.↗️ We make sure that all our clients understand that content is king. As an example, say you were looking for information about a widget. If my site has three pages of solid information about the widget, but my competition has over 50 pages of solid information, who should rank higher? Common sense, right? So invest in solid content. Also set up a schedule so that you make this part of your daily life at work.
Pro Tip: One of the most important things you can do is being consistent with your content posting. Decide how frequently you want to post and put it on your calendar as a meeting. That way it will be blocked off time for working on content and not an afterthought. We all know we should be spending more time developing content, but it’s one of those things that ends up being pushed to the back of the list of to-do items. As a repeating meeting, you will hopefully stick to the schedule.
Listen, we all want to rank highly in Google and other search engines. So it is very important to employ search engine optimization techniques. However, what I have found recently is people go overboard and are designing more for search engines than they are for real people. If you get people to your website and then the content doesn’t read well or is over optimized, you probably won’t convert those visitors to customers. So yes, think about SEO, but don’t let it be the only driving force behind your website content.
Pro Tip: with WordPress, there are a lot of good SEO plug-ins designed to help you avoid keyword stuffing and other no-nos. You should follow the guidelines of your plug-in, but don’t let it rule everything you do. The quality of your content is critical, don’t lose sight of that to try to somehow trick search engines into a better ranking.
This is a good example of a site with definite measures of success. If you are a landlord, what is the one thing that makes you successful?
Simple: No Vacant Apartments. Ok, but what does the website have to do with ensuring 100% occupancy? To maintain a full complex, you need people to be constantly looking to tour and ultimately lease an apartment. For the complexes I manage, we do this by people inquiring via contact forms and calls. As we get multiple form responses each and every day, the company is able to maintain an incredible occupancy rate. That, my friends, is a success!
This is a bit different to measure. If you are a lawyer, you want to always be bringing in new clients. While some people will fill out a form, many times people will call as issues can be personal. I recently checked in with an attorney to see how the site was doing. He said he is getting new clients every week from the site, and he was thrilled with the performance. You can’t beat that.
This one is a bit easier, to measure if you are selling online, then you want sales, pure and simple. From my standpoint, this means you need a site that is easy to order from. We do this by having a great one-page checkout page. We know it works as we have very few abandoned carts. Now, unfortunately this is dependent on factors we can’t always control. Number one among this is shipping price. In an Amazon world, you require free or low cost shipping. Heavy products are hard to sell online as shipping can cost more than the product themselves. I wrote about this topic in a blog post: In an Amazon world charging high shipping prices is a no-no.
Not every website is meant to sell a product, some are just to let people know all about you and your business. To me, the thing that makes these types of sites successful is simplicity. Now, what do I mean by simplicity? When you go to a site to learn about a company, you want to find the information easily. To do this, a website should have all important information reachable with one or 2 clicks. If people have to delve too deeply layers down, they will never get to essential information. With over 50% of people viewing your site on mobile devices, they don’t want to click 4 or 5 times, they want the info in a hurry.
Non-profits are driven by donations, plain and simple. Make sure your site does a good job of discussing the cause. You want to have your donation button standout. So if you have your main menu links, using CSS, make the donate link look more like a button. It is also critical to have an events page, and a news/blog section. It is also vital to show your non-profit status designation. People want to donate, but knowing they can get a write-off their taxes is an additional incentive.
If are a service business, you want people to be able to use your company. One of the most critical factors is the Call To Action. Logically placed call to action to get someone to make an appointment is the way to go. Now, not everyone feels comfortable filling out forms. So it is a good idea to send them to a page which not only has a form, but your phone number, email and even a link to send a text. This way, whatever a visitor to your website is comfortable with, can find that contact method. Another significant thing for service business is your Google My Business listing. Because most service businesses are local, it is crucial your GMB listing is complete.
As we have shown above, what makes A website successful is different for different types of websites. Before you meet with a web development firm like RooSites, it is a good idea to have your goals worked out, so we can work to make your site successful. Search Engine Optimization is always important, so also know what keywords and phrases you want to be found for.
