Does your Website Help or Hurt your Business?
By Raeleen
| 13 April 2022
How Improving your Website can Grow your Company
Does your website help or hurt your business? A poorly designed website can do you more harm than good. Turn things around by improving your website. Find out more in this post.
Many business owners are now aware that they need a website for their business. But it can still be a challenge to understand how powerful their website could be. We are often so disappointed when we see average-looking and poorly-designed websites and business owners have been misinformed and don’t fully understand that this will hurt their business more than it will help them.
This is why we are on a mission to help business leaders to make better choices and have more control when making decisions about their online spaces.
What are the Benefits of Improving your Website?
If your website has confusing navigation, loads slowly, contains too many mistakes, and is hard to use, it will discourage your potential customers from transacting with you. Visitors might think that your website is not legit and cannot be trusted. And additionally Google may even think your website can’t be trusted and result in you getting SEO penalties. This will hurt your reputation and eventually affect your bottom line.
Improving your website can help turn things around. Here are some of the benefits of revamping your website.
Stand out from the crowd
Consumers have a lot of options when it comes to products and services. A generic-looking website won’t cut it. Your website content and design must do a good job highlighting your unique selling point and value proposition so that you can stand out from the competition.
Boost your image and authority
Your website is a reflection of your business. People will make assumptions about your company based on how your website looks and their experience with it. If your website looks outdated and is hard to navigate, your visitors will have a negative impression of your business.
Improving the design, content, and performance of your website can help you boost your image and authority.
Build trust with your audience
Gaining and maintaining the trust of your potential and current customers is crucial for your company’s growth and survival.
Your website allows you to show your target audience that you can be trusted by showing them social proof and testimonials from your satisfied customers and assuring them that their information is secure when they transact through your website.
Improving your website’s design and security can help increase the trustworthiness of your brand and convince your target audience to become loyal customers.
Increase site traffic
Optimising your website can help you get to the top of the search engine results page which in turn can get more people at your door. Likewise, if your visitors have a good experience browsing your site, they are more likely to return.
Reduce your bounce rate and increase engagement
Getting your target audience to visit your website is just the first step. Ideally, you want them to stay on and browse other pages and to get them to take an action (buy your product or service, fill out a form, download a file, etc.).
But it is not realistic to expect that every one of your visitors will take action. Many will bounce or leave the site after viewing just one page for various reasons. However, you can optimise your website to reduce your bounce rate and increase user engagement.
Tips for Building a Better Website
Here are five tips on building an effective website.
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Focus on user experience
User experience (UX) encompasses the end users’ interaction with your company, products and/or services, and that includes your website. Improving the user experience should be your priority when redesigning your website. Spend some time on your website and try to put yourself in your target audience’s shoes. Try purchasing or sending an inquiry and see if the process goes smoothly. Find out what are the possible sources of frustration from your target audience and improve on them. Partner with a UX Design team to help you in creating relevant and meaningful experiences for your users. -
Keep it simple
Less is more when it comes to building your website. Cramming up content on one page and using too many fonts and colours can be distracting and overwhelming. How to keep your website simple? Stick to your colour palette and keep the variety of fonts to a minimum. Limit the use of animations or GIFs or forego them altogether. Simplify your website’s navigation. Keeping things simple also helps in improving the site’s user experience. Your users can focus on the most important parts of your website when there are fewer distractions on your website and when the layout follows a logical pattern. -
Modernise your website
Does your website look like it is stuck in the ‘90s? If your website still has flash animation, clip art, tiled backgrounds, and red fonts, it is high time for a website redesign. Even if your website doesn’t bring ‘90s nostalgia, you must keep your website up-to-date. Aim for a modern, streamlined look; update your blog with current content; replace old photos, and keep up with the current trends and best practices in web design. -
Embrace responsive website design
Responsive website design is a design approach that ensures that your website will look and function well regardless of the device it is viewed from. Responsive websites rank higher in Google search engine results. Responsive design can also help improve the user experience for both desktop and mobile devices. -
Optimise your website for SEO
Website optimisation for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) involves techniques and strategies that are geared towards driving more traffic, improving performance, enhancing user experience, and increasing conversions. It encompasses many aspects such as search engine, technical, and conversion optimisation. Website optimisation includes producing high-quality content, using relevant keywords in your content, improving site speed, identifying and fixing page errors, improving your website’s structure and navigation, and more.
How to Increase Site Engagement Using Seven Conversion-Boosting Tactics
Increasing site engagement is one of the ultimate goals of improving your website. Here are seven conversion-boosting tactics you can use to get more engagement.
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Create clear and compelling Calls to Action and position them strategically
Calls to action (CTA) direct your users to perform the desired action. This could include urging them to directly buy on your website, filling out a contact form, downloading an eBook, subscribing to a newsletter, and more. A call to action can be in a form of a hyperlink within a text or in the form of buttons. Use strong action words in your CTAs and add a sense of urgency to make it compelling (ex. Buy Now). As much as possible, be concise when creating your CTAs. Longer CTAs are okay if you want to evoke an emotional response. -
Make it easy for your customers
To get more conversions, avoid making your customers go through the hoops. Make it less clicks for them to get to where they need to go. Remove unnecessary form fields in your contact form. Make the checkout process easier. If offering a trial, allow them to try out your product without having to give up their credit card info. Eliminating hurdles can help improve your conversion rates. -
Add a live chat
Live chat is a great tool to get your target customers to convert. Those who are on the fence or want some clarifications can get an immediate response and that can help them make a decision. -
Offer a Money-back Guarantee
Consumers want to avoid risk. By offering a money-back guarantee, you can help your target customers to move past their fears and firm up their decision to buy your product or service. -
Entice your customers with various offers
Limited time offers and early-bird sales can build a sense of urgency and encourage customers to act now or else they’ll miss out. Add a countdown timer to your offer to further reinforce urgency. Offer bundled discounts for related items. You can pair a less popular item with a more popular one to move your inventory and at the same time get your customers to try your other products. You can also give discounts to volume orders and make seasonal offers to your customers. Offering freebies is also a great way to entice customers to buy your products. -
Take opportunities for upselling and cross-sell
You can boost your sales by offering your customers related products or services that they can add with just one click right before they complete the purchase. -
Perform A/B Testing
Test your headlines, CTAs, and offers to determine which are more effective. This means creating two versions of your CTAs or offers and showing one version to half of your traffic and another version to the other half and comparing the outcomes. Many tools can help you do A/B testing.
Protect your business from potentially crippling cyber-attacks
You can’t afford to lose customers to a cyber attack. Find out how to protect your site with our Complete Guide to Website Security in 2022.
Conclusion
Your website is essential for the success of your business. You must treat your website as an investment and not just an added expense. It takes time, effort and resources to improve your website but the rewards are worth it.
A new and improved website can help boost your rankings, increase your conversions and help you achieve your goals.
If you need help with a website we’re here for you! Mettro is a proudly Queensland, independently owned and operated digital agency that has been delivering award-winning website design & development and digital marketing for over 20 years. We are dedicated to solving our client’s business problems with smart, simple digital solutions and have the testimonials to prove it.
Our website design team is second-to-none with a focus on real user experience and creative interface designs, and our website development team delivers quality online customer experiences and measurable benefits to our clients every time.
We’ve built thousands of digital solutions including apps, eCommerce websites, custom software, eLearning applications, WordPress websites and Shopify Websites.
We have a talented marketing strategy and creative team, renowned for designing and producing compelling digital campaigns, effective content marketing strategies, digital marketing and results-driven SEO.
Where to from here?
Contact us or book a one-on-one to discuss your website improvement project!