6 Ways to Dramatically Improve Your Website
Whether you know it or not, your website has grown in importance in today’s marketing climate, becoming a more powerful instrument than previously. Your website is now a 24-hour member of your sales team and has the potential to be your most valuable asset and the core pillar of your marketing strategy.
In the ever-changing digital world, it can be extremely difficult to keep up with current trends, tools, and designs. In some cases, a complete website redesign might be the best option. However, we know that you may not always have the time or resources to invest in such a daunting task. There are still several ways that you can improve your website, improve user experience, and ultimately lead to more sales.
Here are 6 things you can do right now to improve your website.
Ensure Your Site is Mobile-Friendly and Responsive
In today’s world, a mobile-friendly website is an absolute must. In fact, Google has been penalizing websites that are not mobile optimized in their search engine results pages. The days of using a separate mobile site or app are over – you need your design to be responsive and work across all devices.
But what does “mobile-friendly” really mean? According to Google, it means having a layout that is flexible enough for those scrolling on their phones. For example, the page can shrink or expand based on the screen size being used by the user, with text and images resizing appropriately too. Also, it means having links spaced out so they’re easy to tap on touchscreens and users have more room for tapping buttons. A good rule of thumb: if you have any doubts about your site’s mobile-friendliness, it would be a good idea to check out a free checker tool such as Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool.
Include Well-Written Website Headlines
Your website is your 24-hour salesperson, so it’s important to make sure that you have well-written website headlines.
The first thing people see when they visit your page are the headlines. And if done correctly, it can be one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal. Your aim should always be to get them hooked with interesting wording or a shocking statistic before they click on to read more about what you offer.
But what makes for a good headline? The best headlines are short and concise. Too long and they’ll lose their impact. But too vague and no one will want to know more, or not specific enough and people won’t really understand why they’re clicking through. And don’t forget, keep headlines interesting and don’t be afraid to get creative with them.
Simplify Website Navigation
Website navigation is about making sure that your website visitors can find what they want easily.
It’s important to make the most of every single page on your site, with a clear path for people to follow and easy access to all the information they may need. This will help you increase conversions by providing an intuitive user experience that leads them straight to your product or service pages.
The easier it is for them to find what they’re looking for, the more likely they are going to buy!
This means creating categories with logical names so you don’t have too many sub-categories cluttering up your homepage. And also ensuring that search engine crawlers can index each page. In addition, it means making sure there are no dead-ends or abandoned pages on your site. So, double check all of your 404 errors!
Optimize Your Website's Page Speed
One thing we know without a doubt is that people don’t like waiting. They want to find what they want quickly and get out of your site so they can do something else. But if your website loads too slow, they’re going to get frustrated and leave. And chances are, they’re not coming back.
That’s why it’s so important that your site loads quickly and is easy to navigate, with well-written headlines that hook visitors in before they even read more about what you offer. If your website loads too slowly, they’re going to get frustrated and leave without coming back again!
This is an area where you can invest a few minutes here and there throughout the year to make a big difference in the speed of your page load. There are three main areas that will help with this: reducing the size of files on your site, decreasing server response time, and compressing images. Each of these things will require some level of expertise, but none of them should be too tough for anyone used to doing regular website maintenance.
Choose Your Website Graphics and Images Wisely
Choosing the right graphics and images for your site is important. Graphics are what really break up your content so it isn’t just one long boring string of text. Images are also very important because they can be used to help entice people to click on a link or buy a product, depending on what you want them to do. Graphics and images can provide context to your content, especially if you’re promoting an event or an article that needs more explanation. Including visuals can make your website more interactive for visitors who are not reading everything on the site.
Website graphics and images should be chosen carefully.
Images can provide context to your content, especially if you’re promoting an event or article that needs more explanation. Including visuals can make your website more interactive for visitors who are not reading everything on the site. Graphics also break up your text so it’s not just one long string of words. However, the wrong images can actually cause you to lose your audience.
Clear Social Links and CTA's
Calls-to-action (CTA) are the buttons on your website that prompt visitors to take a desired action. A CTA can be as simple as clicking on an email newsletter, or it could lead them to fill out information for a free trial of your product. It is even possible to set up CTAs in order for people to follow you on social media channels like Facebook and Twitter.
It’s important that all CTAs are clear and easy to find because if they’re too hard to notice, then no one will click them! That means using contrasting colors so they stand out against the background of the page, making sure there’s enough space around them so visitors know where they’re supposed to click without accidentally clicking on something else, and putting them in places where they’re most likely to be seen.
That's All for Now!
The 6 ways to improve your website are great ideas that you can implement with minimal cost. You don’t need a lot of money or time invested in order to make significant improvements for the success of your company online! These tips will help ensure people want to buy from you and not someone else, so it’s worth taking the time to review them all closely.
We hope this article has given you some helpful insights into how small changes can lead to big results when it comes to improving your site. Let us know if we’ve missed anything important – our team is always happy to answer any questions about these principles or other aspects related to web design best practices!