Businesses, whether they exist online solely or a mix of the two, need to focus on improving their website. Why, do you ask? Well, the use of the internet has grown in popularity and shows no signs of slowing down. With generations now growing up with access to the web at the click of a button or tap of a screen, more consumers are online and have a digital footprint.
There’s so much data that comes from the online world too that cannot be achieved to the same level as offline databases and information sources provide.
With that being said, there are a number of improvements a business could look to make to its own site this year. There’s always room for improvement – perfection, after all, doesn’t exist. Here are some of the top suggested improvements a business can make to its website for this year and beyond.
Add a live chat service for customer service quality
To help keep your users engaged on your website, it’s important to think about how you will do this effectively. One of the ways is through live chat services. Live chat services have grown a lot in popularity in recent years, which means it’s well worth the investment to add it to your business site too.
With a live chat service, it helps connect your users with instant help (providing the sales agents are online of course) and to get answers to their questions.
Live chat for businesses is a great help for those users who don’t fancy calling the helpline number or waiting two to three business days via email. With chat services online, it’s a quick and easy service that anyone can use.
It may be worth providing the site with a knowledge base or at least a few FAQs to refer to when it comes to commonly inquired questions.
Make it a mobile-responsive site
For any website, it has to be mobile-responsive in today’s digital environment. If it isn’t, then you’re likely to see a substantial drop in traffic from mobile users who access the site from their phones.
With so many people using their phones on the go to browse the internet, it’s fast becoming the number one preference for users of the online world to utilize. It seems silly to have a site that’s not optimized for mobile use, especially as so many now own a smartphone.
Mobile optimization is easily achievable for any site to do and it’s something that can also be helpful for those with access needs. It may also be worth introducing a mobile app if that’s something that you feel your business would benefit from.
Consider adding a blog for extra content
To help improve the site’s traffic and get it ranking on the top result pages of Google, adding content is key. You want to create high-quality, relevant content that your users are going to lap up every time.
Google wants to suggest your website to its users but you have to ensure it’s well-optimized and the content you’re sharing, offers value. A blog is a great addition that any business should consider implementing on their site, even if they don’t have any writers internally available. There are plenty of freelance writers just waiting to be picked!
With a blog, you can become a leader of your own industry, giving personal thoughts and opinions on the topics that matter to your business. Think about adding a blog to your site and watch your rankings climb as a result of the consistent, quality content coming out regularly.
Improve its navigation for users on the site
Navigation is an important one because if your users are struggling to find where a certain page is on the website, then you’re putting the site at a disadvantage. Your site’s navigation needs to be simple but flawless in its design and functionality.
From the interactive buttons working properly to the layout of the site being easy enough to hop from one page to another. It’s surprising just how many websites aren’t well designed and hinder the user’s experience of the website and their impression of the business or brand.
Remember, first impressions matter and when you’re underperforming on the navigation of the site, it’s having a ripple effect and impact on the rest of the business.
Keep your pages clean of clutter
Talking of design and layout, take a look at the website from afar. Is it cluttered? Does it feel like there’s too much going on and therefore it’s distracting from the key areas of the page?
You want to treat your web pages just like you would your business premises – clean of clutter. Of course, in reality, clutter tends to be a problem both in work and personal life but having this attitude is important to adapt to. Cleaning your web pages of unnecessary features or design elements will help make the page or pages, a lot more enjoyable as a result.
Optimize the webpages for SEO
SEO or search engine optimization as it’s known as one of the must-dos for any site in 2023. Optimizing your webpages for SEO is essential and it’s what influences Google to handpick your site’s pages for ranking higher up on the search results.
There are many different SEO practices worth doing in order to help improve your business website. Here are just a few suggestions worth making:
- Add internal links to blog posts and web pages accordingly.
- Compress images and videos to improve page loading speed.
- Add alt-text to images to improve accessibility.
- Opt for more long-form content on your blog.
- Publish top-tier content on every page.
Optimizing your web pages makes a huge difference to your website’s presence on the internet, so utilize these best practices where you can.
Create a web design that’s brand-friendly
To help your business website thrive in this current digital age, focus on creating a web design that’s brand-friendly. It takes the average person 5-7 encounters with a brand before they recognize the brand at first glance.
With that being said, it’s important to remain consistent when it comes to your website and every platform or presence online and offline. By having consistency across all of your platforms, it helps users recognize your business almost immediately when they come across any branding.
Ensure your website has all of the relative brandings that are typical of your business. If branding hasn’t been established enough within your business, then now is the time to make that change.
Make sure any copy is understandable and digestible
Copy is an important focus within your website because there’s likely a lot of it. From the product pages that sell your products and services, to the blog pages that discuss a whole range of topics related to your business.
Every piece of copy created for your site should be understandable but more importantly – digestible. That means when you’re creating content, keep sentences concise.
Try not to waffle to simply stuff words as this will be easily noticeable. Instead, make sure the content is to the point and ideally, you’re constructing paragraphs that are only three to four sentences in length.
Spacing out text with images, videos, and embeds, can also help improve the layout and readability of the copy.
Incorporate CTAs across the site
CTAs or call-to-actions are valuable assets to add to your site. They’re a great way of telling your users what you want them to do. Whether it’s done subtly or it’s blunt and to the point, having these CTAs littered across your site is certainly helpful.
Certain CTAs may be crucial to acquiring more email subscribers for your newsletter, while others may be in the form of a pop-up to suggest a product they might like to buy. There are endless opportunities that come with CTAs and you can never have enough of them.
However, it’s worth limiting any pop-ups with CTAs because pop-ups can certainly be annoying if too frequent. It’s worth timing them so that a pop-up appears the first time the user is on the site but then only pops back up when they’ve come away and gone back on the site, on another day.
Utilize the attraction of images and video
Images and videos are a great way to bring attention to your website. Humans love visuals and any form of visual like an image or video is going to do wonders on your web pages. With that being said, explore the options that come with digital media.
Some retail businesses, for example, not only use video and images but they also offer 360 views of the product. They may also offer how-to videos on how to use the product.
The opportunities are endless and are worth taking full advantage of as a business online.
With all these improvements, you should notice a big difference in how your website performs on search engine pages. Use these tips to help make the improvements necessary for your site this year.
