4 top tips for turning your business website into a success

Your small business might have a website, but it isn’t much use if it isn’t driving customers to you or providing you with sales. Having a website that doesn’t do the job it’s meant to is rather like having a Porsche parked on the driveway but no driver’s license – great, but not much use.

So, how can you turn a business website that is functional and exists into one that is a real success, an asset to your company but most important of all, encourages customers to make a purchase?

Here are four top tips for turning your business website into a success.

Work out the purpose you want your website to serve

Ultimately, you want your website to generate you sales – but how do you want it to do that? Some businesses focus on their history and tradition which is great if you are one of America’s oldest surviving businesses but not so much if you are a startup. For others, using a blog-style format to offer free advice and guidance within the field that you specialize, thus placing yourself as a trusted expert, can be the way forward. Select one approach and a purpose for your website and stick to it – by trying to cram too much information in, you can divert a customer’s attention from what you want them there for, which is a sale.

Focus on page speeds

It’s all about speed, speed, speed. In 2016, Google released data that suggests that 53% of mobile users will abandon a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. If your website is big and clunky and therefore takes a long time to load, chances are it is costing you sales. You can improve your website speed in a number of ways but the most effective are by removing huge files that may slow loading speeds down or changing web hosts. It that’s something you need to do, Hosting Kingdom can help you find the best web hosting for your business needs.

Make it easy for Google and Bing to index your site

If your website isn’t generating the traffic you need it to, then chances are that it isn’t being indexed effectively by search engines. You can improve your chances of moving up their rankings and as a result becoming more visible with simple changes such as a clear site and content structure, a site map, meaningful URLs and relevant keywords in title. If you aren’t familiar with the basics of SEO, then you can always hire an expert to give your site a healthy check and upgrade.

Keep it updated

A stale and out-of-date website translates as a stale and out-of-date company. If your content highlights what a great job your plumbing firm did on a bathroom 18 months ago, people will wonder why you haven’t got more recent examples of work. Is it because you don’t get any trade– hardly encouraging – or because every other bathroom you’ve worked on since then has been substandard? By keeping things up to date, potential customers can see that yours is a fresh and thriving business which is hugely encouraging when it comes to persuading them to use your services.