Business websites are standard these days regardless of size or industry.
Without a website, businesses won’t be taken seriously.
Here are 6 critical elements business owners require when building or revamping a website:
1. Content
Here’s an eye-opening fact, the majority of visitors formulate an opinion of your business within 50 milliseconds of first landing on your website.
Given that most website visitors (both new and returning) will land on your homepage before doing anything else, relevancy and readability are crucial.
2. Contact Info
Over 50% of business websites still don’t have their contact info clearly listed on their website. Many times, this is all your visitors are looking for.
Bottom line: make it easy for them to contact you. The more digging and clicking they have to do will likely annoy them and they’ll quickly dismiss your business.
3. Visual Stimulation
Again, first impressions are super important for 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 may be the best and only logical option for them.
Visual content like images, videos and logos, are often far more engaging and helps your visitors visualize what it is you offer. For example, viewers can retain up to 95% of a video’s info compared to only 10% of the same message in written form. You don’t need to overload the pages with videos and images, but high-quality visuals will make a huge impact.
4. CTA
It’s 2020, your website should be more than an online billboard. If you want your website to become a revenue magnet for your business, then a clear and compelling Call to Action is your best hope of pushing them in the right direction.
A Call to Action could be any of the following; subscribe to our newsletter, buy now, start your trial, sign up for an appetizer, create a membership, request a callback, request further info, make a telephone call, or download a file.
In truth, the list goes on and on. Knowing what you want the visitors to do next is a crucial step on the path to conversion. If nothing else, a clear CTA will grab the attention even when the user is skimming the info.
If you fail to point them in the right direction, they may end up navigating to a competitor’s website which is the last thing your want.
5. Social Media Access
Social media plays a huge role in business website success these days and function as a marketing and promotional tool now for small businesses. Since the majority of the population is on social media already, and spending over an hour a day on there, it’s critical that you give your visitors the ability to connect with you on your business’ social media accounts.
Encourage your website visitors to “stay connected” with you and get updates by following you on your social media. Social media is free and is very effective for a business to provide value to your target market by offering tips, training, media, promotions or discounts.
6. SEO Best Practices
A visually appealing website with good content is worthless if you have no visitors. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of your greatest weapons you have at your disposal.
Having solid SEO built into your site will help improve your search engine ranking. Over 90% of all website traffic come from the results on the very first page of the search results. What’s even better than this is that the traffic that comes from this is typically the best because they’re actively searching for a business like yours – either by location or type of business.
There are over 200 data metrics that help determine page ranking. Some of the higher priority factors are: back links, keyword optimization, and Google My Business information. And with mobile now being the majority of web traffic, you had better consider Mobile SEO factors such as voice searches and location searches.