April 12, 2022
As any internet strategy consultant will tell you, the single most important part of your marketing strategy in today’s digital world is having an excellent website. This is the first chance you have to make a good impression on potential customers, and it needs to create an accurate representation of your brand and what it stands for. A ‘good’ website is not enough. It needs to strive for excellence if it is going to help you convert visitors into sales. With that in mind, what exactly makes a website excellent in 2022? Let’s take a look!
The design of your website should reflect your brand in style and color. It also needs to be unique and visually appealing. A cookie-cutter website that looks just like everyone else’s is not the way to stand out! However, looks are not the only important part of the design. It also needs to function correctly! A great user experience is essential. Navigation should be straightforward and intuitive for your visitors. They need to be able to get to the page they want without any problems.
In 2022, if your website is not optimized for mobile, you might as well not have a website! Almost 60% of global web traffic comes from mobile devices. The number of mobile users is only likely to grow, and Google implements a mobile-first indexing policy, so having your website correctly optimized will improve your user experience and your SEO rank.
When it comes to putting your message out there, content is king! If your website looks pretty but doesn’t have any engaging content, you won’t get very far. Everything you write needs to be unique and engaging. It must offer value to your visitors. Ask yourself this - does it educate or entertain my visitors? If the answer is no, you might want to talk with an internet strategy consultant about working on content marketing for your brand.
One mistake we see all the time is websites without easily accessible contact information. Don’t make your customers chase you down! Offer multiple ways to contact you and make it easy for them to get in touch. There should be a contact form on every page, and we also recommend adding at least a phone number, but preferably an email address at the top of your website.
One of the first questions we ask the clients who choose us as their internet strategy consultant is what they want to achieve from their website. If your site does not have a clear purpose, or if you fail to communicate to your visitors what you want from them, they will do nothing! Think about the ideal next step when someone lands on the website and create clear calls to action. Some examples might include:
Creating an aesthetically beautiful website is important, but if it is not optimized correctly with the help of an internet strategy consultant, there is a good chance nobody will ever see it! It is crucial to optimize your website for search engines and social media. Your internet strategy consultant can implement many different SEO techniques to give you the best chance of ranking on page one of Google.
As of June 2021, page loading speed has become one of the core ranking elements for Google. If your pages are not loading quickly, you will find it challenging to rank on page one of the search results. Even if we take Google out of the equation and focus on your audience, page speed remains a huge factor in creating a successful website. The truth is, internet users have short attention spans. If your page isn’t loading, statistics suggest that the average online user will abandon a website after 2 seconds if it has not loaded! Despite this, the average load time for a desktop site is 10.3 seconds! Which means if you can get below 2 seconds, you are already miles ahead of your competitors! As an internet strategy consultant, our experience has shown that custom HTML-coded sites are much faster than those built using templates or content management systems.
A big part of having a successful online presence is building trust with your customers. If they are going to spend money on your product or service, they need to trust you. There are specific trust signals that consumers look for. One of the big ones is an SSL certificate to show that your website is secure. This shows that you care about securing any data you might collect from them. Having a valid SSL is also a ranking factor for Google. Another way to build trust circles back to some of the previously mentioned points. Does your content position you as a knowledgeable expert in your industry? Have you made it easy for people to contact you - or do you have a reason to hide! All of this can contribute to consumers trusting your business.
These are just a few of the important elements to consider when designing the website that will best represent you and your brand. An internet strategy consultant can help you to determine exactly what your business needs to help it rise above the sea of digital clutter that makes up the world wide web and grab the attention of your target audience.
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To Your Best Online!
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Ingrid Maddox, Internet Marketing & Strategy Consultant. bluedress INTERNET MARKETING®, an Internet Marketing Company headquartered in Knoxville, TN. Internet Marketing Developed, Implemented, and Managed to Full Circle! Organic Internet Search Engine Guru. Turn-Key Internet Optimization Programs Placing You Everywhere and Anywhere You Need to Be Online.
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