Any marketing professional or business executive who is worth their weight in gold will constantly strive to increase the ROI of their website. Still, there are some who hope to get lucky and gain a million visitors, convert them to customers and then enjoy the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It’s just not that simple. To boost your website’s ROI you need to take into account the proper planning that’s required, as well as the professional design and content creation that separates the great from the rest.
You must think of your website as your most valuable marketing tool.
Your branding and marketing initiatives should flow through your website—it is the heart of your marketing efforts and your most valuable marketing tool. Your website must:
- be strategically planned.
- answer the important questions of your prospects and customers.
- convey what you do and how you help.
- be an enjoyable and informative experience.
- include search engine optimization best practices.
- be regularly analyzed and improved.
If you have invested in a website that is not yielding the ROI you planned for it’s not because you’re unlucky. More likely it’s a result of not following a list such as the one above. So let’s get to work improving your website’s performance and take a look at the kinds of things that will have you thanking your lucky stars that you read this:
The planning of a great website
Take a look at the structure of your website. Is the navigation logical to someone unfamiliar with your company? Can all of the major questions a website visitor may have be answered quickly? If not, you’ll need to address the organization of the website’s content and pages, or consider if a full website redesign is a better choice rather than retrofitting it.
Test your website usability
When testing a website, we use services such as UsabilityHub or FullStory to quickly get user feedback and record people using the website. These tools highlight issues and problem areas that need to be addressed and improved.
…begin with the 20 questions they are most frequently asked.
Luck is what wins you the lottery, not customers
When people ask me “where do we start with content for my website?” I tell them to begin with the 20 questions they are most frequently asked. When updating or creating the content for your website, your prospects’ pain points and most frequently asked questions should always be addressed. You want them to come to your website and immediately have a sense that your company “gets it” and can help them.
The content of your website should be organized in a logical way, however, avoid creating web pages with lots of long paragraphs where possible.
- Keep headlines succinct
- Use sub-headlines and pull quotes
- Utilize bulleted and numbered lists
- Break up text by using relevant photos, illustrations or videos
- Provide a “call to action” or way for a website visitor to take the next step
Your website design should be compelling and reflective
You only have a few seconds to capture the attention of a new website visitor. If you don’t, they’re gone forever. Done. That’s a missed opportunity.
As you work toward your pot of gold, the items listed above will play a critical role in making your website a more valuable marketing tool for your company. The design of your website will help display your content and captivate your visitors.
The design, colors and fonts used on your website should be consistent with your company’s branding. With the acceptance of web fonts on nearly all devices, you can match your brand’s fonts on the website—a nice upgrade from years’ past. Your web designer can utilize your brand guidelines to make sure the colors on the website are consistent with all of your other branded marketing communications.
Converting website luck to strategy
Many websites miss the mark when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO) and analytics. When most business owners are planning a website redesign or refresh, they are very focused on what the website looks like and what it says to those people visiting the site—but there is more to it. Additional text and content needs to work behind the scenes. That’s why your website’s code structure is important. How your headlines, sub-headlines, lists, images, links and more are attributed is critical for your website to be optimally indexed and categorized by search engines.
Text referred to as “meta data” is very important for your website’s search ranking. The meta data serves as brief overview descriptions of the content on web pages. The meta data words you use to describe the page are very important and need to be thoughtfully prepared.
In the image above of a Google search the text you see in the search result is the meta data from the page. You can control what this text is and optimize it so it is compelling to potential website visitors.
Using Google Analytics to improve your website ROI
Google Analytics is a free service that records a plethora of data about your website visitors and their actions. It will tell you:
- how long people visit the site and pages.
- where visitors are coming from.
- the keywords searched by visitors.
- how advertising efforts are paying off.
- the most valuable pages.
- the conversion rate of landing pages.
Setting up goals in Google Analytics is a way to track the metrics and conversions that are most important to you and your website. Reviewing your website analytics on a regular basis (based on the volume of your website traffic) will help encourage improvements to your website. Remember that your website is an investment that does require ongoing attention to maximize the possibility that you’ll find your pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Find your pot of gold! Give Trillion a call.
Trillion Web Design, Interactive Design & Internet Marketing can help drive your company’s marketing initiatives and turn a lagging ROI into a profitable inbound marketing machine. If you would like to talk about your website’s challenges and to see if we might be a good fit for you, give us a call at 908.219.4703 or just complete our contact form and we will call at a convenient time for you.
