Does your website deliver the results you want? If it doesn’t, you’re not alone. Many businesses are dissatisfied when their online presence fails to deliver measurable results. So what can you do about it? Just launching a website is not enough. You have to tweak and promote it. If your website is live but there’s not a visitor in sight, it might be time to take a long, hard look at your site and identify the issues. Here are five essential elements that will help you create effective website traffic and conversion rates.
#1 Overall Appearance and User Experience (UX)
“Many people will first encounter your business and brand by visiting your website. What will characterize their experience? Rather than taking chances, take charge.”
Take some simple steps to ensure every website visitor has a pleasant, easy experience that reflects well on your business.
Ensure your website has a sleek and modern look and feel to it. You can achieve this by using WordPress and plugins to create a website with an interactive look. Ensure you have fast loading times on mobile devices, easy navigation and provide fast checkout options.
Remove any distractions on web pages with white space (basically empty space on your web pages). It’s a great way to ensure your visitors can easily find and absorb important information. White space helps them zoom in on the information you want to present to them right away.
Ultimately, when your website creates a pleasant experience, you’ll convert more visitors into leads and customers because they will have a great experience on your site.
#2 Social Media Integration and Social Proof
The world’s top social networks have millions of active users each month. It would be a shame wasting that potential.
Place social media buttons on all your pages so people can visit and follow you on their favorite sites. Make sharing your content fast and easy with sharing buttons. Search engines see how often people share your content and consider that when determining how and where to display your website in search results.
Use social media to build the public’s awareness of your brand, but take your time when learning the ropes to avoid the most common social media mistakes such as coming off too salesy. People don’t want sales, especially when browsing their news feeds.
You should add to your social proof with online reviews. Encourage your customers to write reviews that describe their experience with your business. Most likely, third-party websites will host most of your customers’ reviews. However, also post customer testimonials to your website.
#3 Quality and Relevant Content
A high-quality website must host high-quality content. So, make sure that all the content you publish uses correct spelling and grammar.
Pay attention to the relevance of your content. Articles that highlight the importance of company culture and showcasing yours are a good way to connect with your audience and show them your values and passions.
Everything on your website should help your readers understand their challenges and desires. Your content should also help people recognize you and your products as the perfect solution to their needs.
To provide variety and connect with visual learners, create videos, infographics, and illustrations to communicate your messages.
Quality also matters to search engines. Google’s algorithm uses AI and other technologies to assess your content. Therefore, the relevance and quality of your material can affect where your site appears in search results.
#4 SEO: Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization is a specific marketing method that aims to increase website traffic by improving a website’s position and relevance in search results.
“Effective SEO practices start with in-depth market research. Once you know the market, you can focus your content on the topics, phrases, and keywords relevant to your target audience.”
To get the most from SEO, place keywords within your text and make sure their placement is organic. Other SEO factors may include the names and “alt” text used for images, page and link structure, and page length.
SEO isn’t just about keywords and technical stuff. Remember that first point we talked about – user experience? Google things very highly of it and UX is part of SEO ranking parameters.
Most internet traffic comes from mobile users and mobile friendliness is also a factor that can either contribute or be detrimental to the ranking of your website. So, if your site doesn’t load fast on smartphones, tablets, and watches, Google may demote it in search results.
#5 Website Safety
You should implement sensible security solutions so that users know you are serious about your business. Start by installing a valid SSL certificate. SSL encrypts all the data exchanged between a visitor’s web browser and your site.
When you do this, people can access your content via HTTPS and see the green security indicator near their browser’s address bar. So, even if hackers are watching, they won’t steal your customers’ confidential information.
After securing your website, consider other aspects of cybersecurity to prevent phishing, ransomware, and other attacks. By asking yourself how cyber secure your business is, you’ll avoid embarrassing and expensive consequences of a data breach.
Your website is an effective tool to help you grow your business and brand. However, you shouldn’t expect automatic success. Instead, invest time and effort into developing a quality online presence through a safe, secure, SEO optimized and mobile-friendly site.
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