In the last blog, we went over several factors to help you determine whether or not your website is keeping up in today’s ever-changing, digital world. Today, we will cover other very important components that a great, well designed website should be sure to include. Run through this list, and ask yourself these questions as they pertain to your own website.
Do you have good quality content?
High quality content is a necessity for any business website. Good information should never go out of date. Make sure the information throughout your website is free of spelling and grammar errors. If your information wasn’t written by a professional content writer, you may want to have it rewritten. Good content is what gives your business credibility and builds trust with visitors. Great ways to add quality content to your website is through blogging, white paper creation, eBooks, landing pages, and newsletters.
Is your site optimized for search engines?
Creating great content without having a strategy and goal in mind won’t cut it. You also need keyword optimization and SEO strategies to bring traffic to your site in the first place. What good will all of that great information do if no one sees it? Diddly squat. In order for a site to be optimized for search engines, it needs to have a good combination of valuable content and intelligently integrated keywords. Forcing keywords into your text where they don’t work well will only make the wording seem forced and sound awkward and unnatural. The use of strong keywords, search engine strategies, and original content is what will pull in the kind of traffic you desire in the first place. Engaging, helpful, and well-written material, though, is what will keep people coming back for more.
Is your website easy to navigate?
Is the menu on your website as clear as day to see? Your navigation bar should appear consistent throughout your entire site. You don’t want visitors to get “lost” within your site. Make sure that if you have multiple pages or levels to your site, that each one is easy to navigate to and from. Within the navigation bar, each category should be clearly defined and separated from each other section. Also be sure that each category clearly describes the page it is leading to and that every link is clickable, leading to the correct page. This may seem obvious, but there are many websites out there with broken or outdated links which can make a business seem incompetent and unprofessional.
Is your imagery original, and does it support your brand and your message?
According to 3M, visuals improve learning up to 400 percent, and people can process visuals 60,000 times faster than text. This just goes to show you how important visuals are in effectively presenting information. Be sure to include well designed or well photographed imagery and graphics on your website that support your brand. You may need to hire a professional graphic design firm to create unique graphics for your website. If you are using stock images and photography, make sure they're original enough. You don’t want to have an image on your website that thousands of other companies have as well. Also make sure your images aren’t “cheesy,” old-fashioned, or awkward-looking. On the other hand, make sure that if you are doing your own photography, that it is professional and very high quality. Do not use images just to fill space. Every image included on your website should be there for a reason, supporting the content of your pages. They should be there to help the viewer better understand your message, not to distract or confuse.
Is it well designed?
The answer to this question can pretty much sum up everything we have covered in these last two blogs so far. If your website has not been redesigned or at least updated in the last few years, it’s most likely time to consider giving it a look over. You want your website to remain current and relevant in today’s society. In order for that to happen, it needs to evolve with the world around it. It's unlikely that your business has remained exactly the same over the years. By creating new offers, providing current information, and showcasing tasteful design, you will offer potential customers a solid reason to check into your business and your current customers a reason to stay with you.
If you think your website could do with an update in any way, shape or form, feel free to contact Blue Frog Marketing in Des Moines, Iowa. We would be glad to work with you to help you create the website that produces the kind of results and customer conversions that you desire!