The new year is the perfect opportunity to revitalise your website and think about the digital impact your business would like to make for the year ahead.
You should know by now that a website is the shop front of your business, and if it’s not looking fresh and truly showing your company in the best light you will not only lose traffic but you’ll also be losing key leads to your competitors.
Research by Sweor has found that it takes only 5 milliseconds, that’s 0.05 seconds, for users to form an opinion of your website, so whether you’re selling a service or product, it’s critical that you review and audit your website to ensure it doesn’t appear stagnant.
You may assume it’s functioning just fine, but when compared to the advancements in design and user experience, your website could be looking like a dusty old book.
Don’t simply assume everything is working just fine, make a proactive effort to review and audit your entire digital strategy so that each supporting element is drawing you closer to lead or a sale.
Below we’ve listed the key elements that should be considered in a digital strategy so that your website can become the sales portal it needs to be.
Design & Brand
When was the last time you refreshed your branding?
If your branding doesn’t follow through to your website, it can stir up an overwhelming amount of negative perceptions about your organisation. From being disorganised and chaotic to being outdated.
A study found that 94% of negative website feedback was design-related. Therefore, if your website is not engaging with users on instant impact, you could find people bouncing off and reaching to your competitors.
Just like a shop front, your website should be updated every few years to ensure that it looks fresh and modern. After all, just like fashion trends, seasons change, and if you’re still using design elements that are past their sell-by date, it’s going to speak volumes about your organisation.
This is especially true for e-commerce websites when trust is one of the biggest factors in gaining a sale. If your website looks outdated, this may also come across as outdated and unsafe to a user.
Mobile Performance
If your website has not been updated since the mobile-first algorithm became the norm you could be restricting an entire stream of potential leads.
It’s a fact that we use our phones to research products and services, and even to buy items, so it’s simply common sense that your website should be mobile-friendly.
While many people may look at the design of a website when it is loaded on a mobile screen, there is far more that needs to be considered for it to truly be mobile-worthy. This includes functionality, speed, and layout.
A study by Invision found that 85% of adults think a company’s mobile website should be as good or better than their desktop website. No matter whether you’re b2b or consumer-focused, users demand an easily accessible mobile experience.
User-Experience
Do you know how people are interacting with your website?
- Which pages are the most popular?
- Which pages have the biggest drop-off?
- Where are the most popular converting customers coming from?
- Are landing pages ranking for the correct keywords?
- Is your mobile traffic converting as expected?
If you can’t answer these questions it is a clear sign that a website audit is required or you may be failing to understand the value in your website.
By analysing the user experience and the user journey on your website, you can quickly understand which areas of your website are failing and develop a strategy to improve it.
88% of online consumers are less likely to return to a website due to a bad experience, which means if you’re frustrating new visitors they won’t be coming back.
Your website may look functional and have a sharp design, but it’s not until you truly delve deep into how people are navigating around it and exploring pages that you can have an understanding of what’s missing and why people are perhaps not converting to sales or enquiries.
SEO
Google’s ranking algorithm is in a constant state of change and adjustment, so if you haven’t revisited your keywords and optimisation recently your rankings could be falling through the roof. It’s important to understand your landing pages and associated topics so that you can optimisation each page accurately.
You may even be trying to rank for broad keywords, rather than more specific keywords that can increase your website relevancy and therefore increase your leads.
Furthermore, your website could have been optimised using outdated methods, which not only impacts your rankings but can put your website at risk of a penalty.
Google’s ranking algorithm has gone through some dramatic changes over the past two years, which means you should be adjusting your website to meet these requirements. If you’ve ignored your website, or just been doing the bare minimum, it is likely that as your site has evolved there have been content and technical errors that now need addressing to enhance SEO performance.
Digital Advertising
Your website plays a key role in the success of your GoogleAds, which is why it’s critical that you assess not only the AdWords you’re targeting but also the content on your website and whether it’s relevant to the keywords.
You may have existing ads that aren’t performing as well as they should be, losing you money. Or you may even be targeting phrases that are irrelevant to the service or product your business offers, meaning your ads are completely ineffective. Your Adwords quality score is based on many factors including the quality of the landing pages as well as the ads and keywords. Higher quality experiences can lead to lower prices and more visibility.
By conducting an audit, you will be able to align your business strategy with your advertising strategy, which is ideal if you have new goals for 2019.
Social Media
You may have an active social campaign, but is it driving people to your website, and are they being converted once they get there?
These are bold questions you should be asking yourself – after all, if you’re putting a lot of time into your social media you need to know that the investment is paying off.
Your website is the end-point to all your digital interactions, but if it’s not converting people once they arrive, what’s going on?
Social platforms should support your website, and then your website should be the catalyst that converts visitors into buyers.
By conducting a website audit, you can see how much social media is making an impact on your traffic, and if any of those visitors are converting. If you don’t have this knowledge, how can you make an informed decision about your marketing strategy and where best to spend new budgets?
Your company’s digital presence in today’s world must give your customers a reason to purchase from you. Without a good understanding of your website, you cannot be competitive in your market.
Analytics
Understand your analytics data with the most popular and obvious tool Google Analytics. This will give you almost everything you need to understand the best-performing marketing channels with the highest conversions. You can break reports down by location, popular pages and other factors.
Most importantly don’t ignore your analytics as it’s a window into the website performance and knowledge gained can be used to edit and tweak pages to maximise sales.
Your website audit is critical to understanding where improvements can be made and enable you to create a digital strategy that will increase your conversions and drive business growth.
For more details contact RAD SEO
