Your website is the first point of interaction between your business and your potential clients.
How well made and easy to use your website is, gives your visitors an indication of how well run is your business. Interaction with visitors on your website is very much similar to having a traditional brick and mortar store.
A person walks into your store, knowing either exactly what he wants (Example: 1 litre bottle of milk from the store down the street) or he has a vague idea of what he wants. (Example: Something cool to gift to the girlfriend on her B’day). You are the one in charge. He starts asking you a few questions and then he finds what he wants, or leaves.
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It’s very simple when you do not have what he wants, or if he knows exactly what he wants.
But when you have something that might suit his need! That’s when things get tricky. You either end up convincing him and thus making a sale or you lose a potential customer. And it all depends on, ‘How well do you answer his questions?’
In the online space, it’s the same, just that YOU ARE NOT PHYSICALLY PRESENT TO ANSWER THE QUESTIONS and THE NEXT STORE IS JUST A COUPLE OF CLICKS AWAY.
Therefore how your visitors interact with your website is very crucial and it can be the difference between a website that really rocks your business or a website that’s just up and sucking maintenance costs.
Here are the top 10 things to take care of, to make a rocking business website.
1. The traffic must be targeted and not just anyone.
Its better to have 500 visitors per day with 5% conversion rate rather than having 4000 visitors per day with 0.5% conversion rate. And it all depends on how well-directed your Digital Marketing strategy is. What are the keywords you choose for SEO, where do you place your digital Ads. It’s proven that a correct digital marketing strategy that’s aimed at the right audience can increase conversion rates through the roof.
2. Search Engine is the Boss
No matter how much you spend on digital advertising, nothing beats the organic traffic that comes to your website from searches. For small businesses in niche markets, the job becomes relatively easier as there are a few particular set of keywords that concentrate most of the potential buyers. In this case, the job becomes simpler and the SEO choices are easier. You just have to top the search for those few keywords to make the most out of search engines.
3. Everyone is buying on Social Media now
With more and more people spending a huge amount of their time on social media. It’s natural that people make their buying decisions as well on social media itself. With Facebook, Pinterest, Gmail all introducing the buy button in future. Social media has moved from advertising to directly selling on site. The startups and small businesses that are prepared for this, it’s a welcome change with a huge array of potential clients that are buying in all new ways.
4. The all powerful reviews
While most business owners strive to serve their customers better. How well they are able to actually serve them, that only customers can tell. And potential customers always try to look at the reviews of past customers for validation. Therefore if people are really happy from you and your services, don’t hesitate to ask them for a testimonial in your website for your services and products. When people see the happy statements of your past customers, it can really work wonders for your business.
5. Simplicity, The ultimate Sophistication
While we all have a little idea of other things that I have mentioned here. Making the website ridiculously simple and easy is something we all underestimate. Suppose you walk into a store which stores everything in a random manner where finding what you want is simply impossible. What would you do other than running away. The same is true for your business website. Even if you have what your visitors want, if they can not easily find it then, they will run to your competitors. Therefore design is not just about how your website looks or feels, its more about how your website works. Which makes it all the more important that you get some professional to do a usability review of your website before going live, if you do not want your customers running away to your competitors.
6. The visitors these days are super busy. They just scan your website
If you try to notice how you react when you land on a website, you may notice that you scroll and scan for less than 5 seconds before deciding whether the website has what you are looking for or not, the same applies to the visitors on your website. They scan for a couple of seconds before deciding whether to stay or go. It’s very important that you capture the visitor’s attention within those 2 seconds with headings and pictures that are relevant to them. Make the website for scanning and not reading.
7. The power of feedback and testing
Most of the websites that I develop take about a week to develop, but more than two weeks to test and perfect. While many people choose to ignore the testing phase, it’s importance still remains unchanged. You will not be able to know how every small thing in your website is working, until and unless you have thoroughly tested them. And believe me, many times it’s the small little flaws and bugs that end up frustrating away a good number of users. And you would not want that to happen to your business website.
8. Analytics to the rescue
While you and your developer always intend to make the website simple and interactive that your users will find super easy to use but even after you have done everything you can, there can be issues that remain in your website and frustrate your visitors aways. There are many analytics platforms that analyse your website traffic free of cost (like google analytics) and tell you about issues that might exist on your website that’s driving your visitors away.
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9. Spam: The thing to fight
After you have done everything right to create a super cool website for your visitors, the last thing you want is to have spammers bulking and slowing down your website. Any decently experience web developer uses algorithms and scripts to auto check for spam and false traffic that are intended to actually slow you down. Ask your developer explicitly about what kind of support does he use for spam protection on your server.
10. Your Website is just a medium, Your business is about YOU
No matter how cool is your website, if you are a small business, personal trust and comfort that your customers have in you will always matter more. Your customers do business with you and its you who has to establish a relationship with them. Many a times in small businesses people keep returning to you, not so much for your service but because they like you personally. When you are small and growing, you can use this to your advantage and get to know your customers more closely and develop a personal relationship.