Far too often, Upstate business owners place far too much emphasis on website design instead of what the site actually does for them. Because just like every other aspect of your company, a website is a powerful tool that can either drive in new business or drive it away. Don’t get us wrong, a good looking website is very important to impress new customers, but ultimately they care far more about its functionality and the available information. Here are a few more tips to keep in mind-
Fast Loading Times
Three seconds. That’s how long you have to grab the average consumer’s attention from the very instant that they click on your link. If your website is hosted on a slow server that takes a few seconds to load, then you’d better have the Holy Grail of homepages to convince them to stay. Google, the king of all search engines, recognizes this trend as well and they reward websites that load quickly. Optimizing a website for all of today’s digital devices is a win/win scenario.
Complete Search Optimization
If you think SEO stands for “Southeastern Oregon” or anything other than “Search Engine Optimization”, then your website is probably in trouble. From proper page formatting to building backlinks to adhering to the dozens of other requests made by Google and Bing, this is the only way for new customers to find you online without paid results. For now, we’ll spare you the technical details, but know that these are steps that have to be taken if you have a realistic expectation of a good return on your investment.
Lots of Fresh Content
Since recent studies have shown that upwards of 82% of all Americans price-check from their smartphones before visiting a retail store, having a search optimized website is absolutely crucial for your success. While we won’t go too much into technical detail, every successful website has to have a steady stream of content talking about their business to achieve proper search results. In fact, even sponsored campaigns are now taking your site’s optimization levels into consideration, so there is simply no substitute for frequent updates.
Other Reasons to Get Involved
Then again, a successful website has a lot more than just words on a page- it gives consumers a reason to stick around and/or visit more often. That’s why so many sites these days have social media contests, news clips, games and hundreds of other unique features…they want you to stick around. Not only does it help their site optimization efforts, but it also creates a company sub-culture that your customers become a part of.