1. DON’T overwhelm your visitors with too much content.
It’s common knowledge that most people will leave your website within 10 to 20 seconds if they don’t find what they are looking for.
Try this:
Make sure all the content on your website will be useful to your website visitors and that it’s easy to find and read. As the business owner you’ve probably seen your site millions of times, so it can be hard to see it through a customer’s eyes. Ask someone who has never seen your site to try and find a specific piece of content. Measure how many clicks it takes them to find what they are looking for. If it’s more than one or two clicks, you may have a problem.
Make sure your website pages have what marketing professionals call “white space.” Put simply, this refers to the amount of space on your page that isn’t occupied by text or images. Most people won’t be actually reading the content on your website, they’ll be scanning it and looking for words that are relevant to what they are searching for. White space helps people do this.
Remember:
Your customers may not need to know everything about your business from your website. You can use future touch points to give them more information.
2. DON’T go long periods of time without updating your site.
We’ve all been to websites where it’s obvious the content hasn’t been refreshed since the site was first built.
It looks unprofessional and like the business doesn’t care. What’s more, search engines like fresh content, so you also risk becoming outranked in search results by your competitors.
Try this:
Plan regular health checks of your website. Take a look at the content and see if everything is still relevant to your customers. If not, take it out or replace it with something that is.
Start a blog. A blog is a great way of keeping your website updated with fresh news and content about your business. You could add photos of new products, events, your thoughts about a relevant topic, or just general business news. There’s only one rule: don’t be boring!
Remember:
A blog may seem like a great idea now, but you need to commit the time to keep it fresh. The only thing worse than an outdated website is an outdated blog!
3. DON’T forget strong calls to action
Put simply, a call to action asks website visitors to do something. Do you want your website visitors to call you? Do you want them to act on a particular promotion on your website? Whatever it is you want your website visitors to do, they will be much more likely to do it if the call to action is clear and prominent.
Try this:
Decide on a relevant call to action for your website. Now think of another one or another way to say the same thing and test them against each other. See which call to action gets you the best results. It might only be a small difference in text or an image, but it’s worth optimising.
Don’t always “go for the kill” (i.e., sale) right away. What do we mean by this? Well, if you know your product or service is something that isn’t usually purchased in one phone call or one interaction, don’t ask customers to do that. An example of this might be a higher-value product that is more complex and requires a salesperson to properly explain the benefits associated with the price. You may even decide that you don’t want to put the actual price on your website. In some instances an inquiry form can provide a better end result.
Remember:
Calls to action should be short and prompt an immediate response. They should also be a simple action for your customer to take. If your call to action is something like, “Fill out this form in triplicate,” maybe you need to come up with something simpler!
