You have a website, but is it performing?

Your website is your business. Representing your brand, products and services. You cannot afford to get it wrong.

As the first impression potential customers will have of your business, this simple guide will help you convert more viewers into leads and achieve the business you are looking for.

According to HubSpot research, a staggering 55% of your visitors spend less than 15 seconds viewing your site. Keep them by giving them what they want: educate them, nurture them and convert them to leads. Or face losing them to your online rivals.

Good design visuals are as important as ever, but on their own they don’t mean a lot. Ensure the world is free to find and enjoy your creative prowess by utilising SEO tactics and linking strategies to get your website content ranking.

At Secret Source, we know how get websites working for our clients. We know that everybody’s needs are different, but that doesn’t mean we cant guide you with our top tips below. Implement them correctly and watch the leads roll in…

1. Ranking.

It’s a simple one. You’ve put a lot of resource, time and stress into perfecting every last detail of your website. You’ve edited numerous versions and read the content repeatedly to ensure your brand message is perfected. It makes sense then to ensure your website is appearing for the right search terms and audience and truly put it to the test.

Ensure your site is up to date, is it still relevant? Have your pages been optimised against the strategic industry keywords and search phrases you’ve identified will get you the business you desire? Where is your site linking to? Have you identified toxic backlinks and tried to build connections internally and externally what will increase the efficiency of your site?

SEO can be confusing, in trying to hit its specific criteria, you often risk losing the meaning or messaging of your site. For example by too heavily plugging keywords into your pages, but ruining readability by doing so. Consider an SEO audit so that you know exactly what your site needs and how to give it the love it deserves!

2. Research your market and out perform your competitors.

Be sure to review your competitors on a rolling basis, keep one step ahead and outperform them. Avoid copying what they do, but don’t allow your site to become the poorer relation.

Remember your target audience and continue to keep them as your main focus. Your aim is provide a website that will be as helpful as possible to your future brand champions.

Put yourself in their shoes and visit your own site time and time again from different viewpoints i.e. through social, through external links, through different devices like mobile and tablet devices. A useful tip is to ask people who are not close to your brand to search for and enter the site. Ask them for their honest opinion. You might not like some of the answers you receive, but it might give you a unique insight.

3. Your website is so much more than a shop window.

Build your website and social media presence correctly and you’ve gained yourself a 24 hour salesperson, with all the answers, resources and capacity to attract, then convert your leads. Utilise simple plug ins to bridge communication gaps and give users instant gratification.

Automated chat tools, gated content and readily available content resources (such as video or ebooks), will have your website standing head and shoulders above the rest.

4. Make it mobile.

Develop your website with mobile in mind. Use tracking tools like HubSpot to understand user behaviour, the devices they use to review your website and the journey they take through your site map.

A useful tip: The information that you provide try not to be constantly openly selling, but rather provide content that helps the reader or assists them to do their job better. This has been proven to increase perceived reliability and trust in your brand and the messages you convey to market.

5. It’s better to earn your audience than buy it.

With the ease and simplicity of digital research, buys are far more savvy these days than even ten years ago. Give them the information they are looking for succinctly and professionally, cut away complexity and make life easy for them. Users want to know if your business can be trusted, keeping it simple reinforces this. Avoid over complicating your services, content and layout. Ask yourself what you do and why you do it well.

Show users your history of success with gleaming customer reviews and case studies, offer them a helping hand and be responsive to queries through social media, chat bots and email. You need to avoid being a faceless brand, give people a trustworthy connection, without coming across as a forceful sales machine. Be accountable, be responsive and show your customers you care. For more on this, check out our blog on growing better!