1. Is Your Phone Number Prominent? People still like to speak on the phone and if your phone number is not on the top right hand corner of every page of your website, then you could be missing out on sales. This is a quick fix and should be done asap.
2. What is your Website Navigation Like? Is your website easy to get around or does it look like a jizsaw puzzle? Can the user find exactly what they want or buy a product easily. Ask for external advice, perhaps from a friend or family member and really take on board what they have to say. Poor on site navigation is a huge reason why people leave sites and in turn why sales can drop.
I know that for our own website, we are constantly looking at ways to improve site process flows and improving the whole user experience. We try to make the whole process as easy as possible, with large call to action icons and colourful, clear navigation buttons.
3. See if your site is viewable on an iPhone or Ipad. Chances are you have an old site with flash components, which need to be taken off asap. Plus ensure that your website has responsive web design; that is, is will automatically resize depending on the screen size.
4. Are your social media links working and valid. Out dated, stale links are not only very bad for the customer experience, but is not a good look for your business. Social media, if implemented properly can be a powerful sales and marketing tool.
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5. Add clients you have worked with in the past on your website home page. This adds credibility and will impress businesses looking for a similar service.
6. Is your website loading fast enough. I know I hate it when I have to wait more than 2-3 seconds for a website to load. People expect speed and if you can’t offer this, expect them to exit your site. Delete all flashy, bling like images commonly used in the past. For strategic online success keep the entire interface clean and simple. This is a golden rule and should never under any circumstances be broken. Designing for the internet is not as easy as it looks and should only be undertaken by a professional web strategy design studio line Hopping Mad Designs.
7. Put a Google+ link on your website. This way your photo from Google + will appear alongside your site when it displays on Google.
8. If you see any photos of people shaking hands, talking in a boardroom or smiling at each other, get rid of them. These are cheesy stock images and will be doing damage to your site. Use actual images of real people in your company.
9. So people do not get lost, include a bread crumb trail within your URL structure.
10. Here’s a great one. Make your logo on each page a active link back to your home page. Allowing users to navigate easily is an essential strategy for website success.
11. If you have 2 businesses consider merging them into 1 website with 1 URL. Avoid confusing clients with too many web addresses.
12. Look at your web site home page and if the words: ‘welcome to such and such a site’ appear then the site is not being optimised correctly. Google will index the welcome part and not your services, so address this immediately.
13. Think about adding testimonials to the home page. Go one step further and add client video testimonials. It’s amazing the power that these have in converting browsers into buyers.
14. Check to see that your home page has a blog – this is an essential web strategy and can be used effectively for your SEO blogging and content marketing down the track. If you havn’t heard about this before then speak with your web company fast!
15. Probably the most web design strategy for online success that you can have for your business is to look the part online. Have a creative looking website that has been designed by a graphic or web design studio. This will make all the difference to the way you are perceived online. Never settle for a stock standard template web design as can often happen. Make the extra effort when it comes to this and be rewarded later on.