5 Things Your Website May Be Missing
Date of Update: 11-02-2016
1. Social Media Links
Social media has become the new “Word of Mouth”. If you like a business or brand, chances are you’ve “Liked” or “Followed” it on social media. Because businesses can reach such a large and vast population of customers through social media, it’s important to have links to your businesses social media pages on your site. Your customers will appreciate it and your business will grow!
2. Responsiveness
I talk quite a bit about responsive design. There’s a reason for that. Ask yourself a simple question, “How many times have I looked at a webpage on my desktop computer this week?” Now ask yourself another question, “How many times have I looked at a website on my mobile phone or tablet?” There’s a pretty good chance those numbers are either very close or that your mobile views far outweigh your desktop views.
The reason is simple. More an more people are on the go and looking for information on businesses while on their phones or tablets. If you’re site is only optimized for a desktop computer, you’re missing out on vital customer interaction! Many customers will check out your site on their phone looking for immediate information they need. If your site loads too slowly on a device, doesn’t look clean and organized, or doesn’t have the information they need readily available, they will move onto another site and another business.
So scale that site down, redesign, or find a way to integrate a mobile version of your site right away. You’re customers will thank you!
3. Basic SEO
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) can be daunting to some website owners. It’s one of those things we know we should be doing, but we don’t think we have the time to invest in it, or we simply don’t know how to start. SEO helps your site be located by people looking for what you provide. It’s like a roadmap for Google to your business website. While you may not have the SEO knowledge to catapult you to SEO stardom, you should, at the very least, have some basic SEO on your website.
Every page of your site should have 3 things. A title, a meta description, and header tags. If you are coding your website yourself and leaving these three things out, you should really invest in the small amount of time it takes to add them as you code your website. I you use a CMS, like WordPress or Drupal, there are several easy to use plugins that will do the job for you. Most of the plugins even go beyond the 3 basics and provide you with tracking abilities.
So consider adding SEO to your site. The time it takes to set up will be minimal, but the payoff will be substantial.
4. Clear Navigation
The cornerstone of a good website is having a clear and well thought out navigation. Users who come to your site will be searching for something specific. If your navigation isn’t easy to follow, your customers won’t stick around. Think of site navigation as a map through your site. That map needs to highlight the places on your site that users are most likely going to look for.
Think for a moment what customers want when they come to your site. Take a pen and a piece of paper and write those things down. Then, draft a navigation menu that highlights those specific areas. You can still link to the less important places on your site, but perhaps moving those links to the bottom of the page would be better suited.
Remember, your site needs to be clean, clear and provide the information your users want. Let’s be honest, if you have a difficult time finding your way through the navigation on your own site, imaging how difficult it would be for new users.
5. Accessible Contact Information
You may be thinking, “Putting contact information on a website is common sense.” And you’d be right. But, you’d also be surprised at how often this tiny piece of website magic is left out of website design.
Your website should have your contact information readily accessible to your users. You may have a contact page on your site, but consider adding some basic contact information as a static piece in your footer. You can simply add your business address, telephone number and email address.
Adding contact information that is convenient for users will help you gain another layer of interaction with your customers.