Working to tone your body to look and feel better in preparation for the summer months is nothing new; but have you considered toning up your website at the same time? Like exercising to make your body look its best, revisiting your website and refining its look, links, navigation and SEO-worthiness is a productive effort that will have long-term benefits. Don’t let procrastination get the best of you because it could be costing you money and lost opportunities.
You may be interested to know what tips and tricks I have up my sleeve and how complicated they are to implement. Truth be told, some are very easy to do (I’m attempting not to sound like a late night infomercial) and you could begin them immediately after you read this blog. However, if any of the improvements are more than you can chew, contact Trillion for help.
First, I would like to list some of the features of a toned and sculpted website:
- Clear articulation of who you help and what you do.
- Easy means for a visitor to contact your company.
- Logical organization and presentation of information.
- Valuable and informative content.
- Optimized back-end code.
Now that I have you thinking about your website, does it contain all of the above? If so, fantastic! If not, I encourage you to read on because I do have some tips that will prove valuable for your business.
When we were planning the Trillion website, we wanted to have clear and concise content that engaged our website visitors allowing them to easily find what they wanted and, most importantly, to recruit prospects searching for the services we offer. The list below explains 4 ways to tone up your website during the summer (or any season, for that matter) to achieve long-lasting benefits for years to come.
1. Create a lean and mean homepage
Your home page will likely to be one of the most visited pages on your website. Given this fact, a home page needs to provide easy ways for a visitor to find all the other content on your website, and to make it easy for them to confirm that you are qualified to help them. Clearly stating the major benefits you offer to your target demographic is critical to quickly capture your visitors. By providing interesting and engaging language and images relevant to them you will touch them on a personal level. From your home page, the visitor should be able to find exactly what they are searching for, or be intrigued to take the next steps required to contact your business.
2. Streamline your meta data
Meta data is a behind-the-scenes summary of the content of a web page. Meta data text is what search engines use to better understand the overall subject matter on a page. Have you ever performed a Google or internet search for content on your website? Web page meta data is commonly displayed in the list of results — so if the descriptions of your site are not optimized, useless information could be displayed.
Meta data is also featured in social media when a visitor shares a link to your website. Generating keyword-rich meta data may be the easiest and most beneficial fix toward toning up your website up and increasing its value to your business. Content management systems make this process as simple as typing an email. Ideally, you want to create unique title descriptions and body descriptions for each major page of your website. If you have a lot of pages, start with the top level and work your way down. No two descriptions should be the same.
3. Take a long, hard look at your website navigation
Examine the items listed in your website’s main and secondary navigation menus. This process will likely reveal opportunities to simplify or reorganize your content for greater efficiency and a better user experience. When your website visitors are searching for an item on your site, they should be able to find it within a click or two. Sounds simple enough, right? You’d be surprised how many websites can grow their content and navigational items without paying attention to the way the pages are organized in the website’s main navigation.
While there are benefits to having added pages on your website to attract new visitors, the user experience once they are on the site is more important. Looking at your website’s analytics, namely the bounce rate, users flow, and pages per session, may reveal hints that users are not finding what they are looking for. Bounce rate is a measurement showing the percentage of visits that end on the first page of the website that the visitor sees. If the numbers are above 60 percent, this is something to be concerned about and is likely a sign that visitors are not finding content that is relevant to them.
4. Add photos taken within the current season
If you have photos from winter or people appearing in winter sweaters, you should consider changing those images out for something more neutral or summer-like. The main reason to replace out-of-season images is to help your business seem more relevant to your prospects and customers. On some websites that we have designed, a simple checkbox being selected within the content management system will present visitors with images that are relevant to a season. We have even built in expiration and publish dates so content changes happen automatically.
It’s a great season to get in shape!
If you are serious about toning up your website and making it more attractive to your prospects and visitors, contact Trillion or call us at 908.219.4703. We help businesses across the United States design, build and optimize their websites, including many clients throughout New Jersey and New York. Take a look at some of the websites we have designed.
