10 Ways to Improve Your Company Website, Part 2 — Yuloff Creative
Every year, because of the free marketing consultations we offer at www.FreeMarketingConsultation.com we evaluate several dozen business websites, looking for clues on how to improve a company website. One of the latest company websites we investigated, seemed to have many of the characteristics we see all the time and it occurred to us that we should share these with you so that you, too, can learn how to improve your company website.
We would like to share with you 10 of the tactics you can use to improve your website.
This is not the entire list we check when we are improving the performance of your website, but it will get you started.
1. Your website should be coded using WordPress
instead of one of the many inexpensive plug-and-done website tools. WordPress is a website designing program that is made with open source code. This means that it is open for use by anyone without paying for the program. Within WordPress, the basic bone of your website, the framework, is where each part of the website lives. There are free frames available by the hundreds and thousands more frames that cost a little money. The correct frame to use depends on the design of your website. Here is an important tip: Make sure that your frame has been downloaded for use at least 10,000 times. This gives the designers incentive to keep the frame up to date and bug free. Finally, because WordPress is open source, the search engines give them more ‘credit’ when ranking them. This is a major method when you want to learn how to improve a company website.
2. Make sure that your website is optimized for cellular device usage.
This means your site should be adaptable and responsive. This means the view should adapt and respond to the screen size on which the site is being viewed. The number of searches which are done mobile, compared to a desk top computer or laptop, is growing steadily, so if you want to know one of most important things to do, getting set for mobile is how to improve your company website. Remember that Google’s search algorythms are set for Mobile First.
3. Put your phone number on the front page, in the upper right hand corner.
We have read studies that say upwards of 60% of people will look at your website just to get your phone number, so let’s make it easy. Also, when your target audience is looking at your website, your phone number should be ‘clickable’ for easy calling.
4. Although your social media logos, and therefore links, should be on your site,
you should move them from the top of the page, where most designers put them, to the bottom of the home page. And their colors should blend with the footer rather than be the candy colors they were created in. You have spent a lot of time and money to get people on to your website, let’s keep them there rather than encouraging them back off to social media.
5. You need to limit or eliminate the use of stock photos on your website.
People could look at that photograph of the 12 professional people on your staff and wonder which of them you will assign to their case. When they find out none of those people exist in your company, there is dissonance. Dissonance leads to doubt which leads to not buying from you. People buy from those they know, like and trust. You break that trust when you use stock photos instead of your own.
6. Make sure you check all the links on your site on a regular basis.
There are tools that will help you do this (just ask Google). We just checked the website of a woman who is an executive coach and found two links which led us to a ‘404 Page Not Found’ message. This, once again, brings us back to a state of dissonance. If you can keep potential clients out of dissonance, you are taking steps towards learning how to improve your company website.
7. When we look at the source code in the back end of your website, one of the things we look for are key words which are very important.
When someone is looking for you, they go to the “Google Machine” and type in the terms they are looking for. As an example, when you look for us, you will type in Business Coach, or Excellent business coach, or business coaches who are experts in small business or many other possibilities. When we work with our private coaching clients, we do searches for these key words and add them to the code. Many people get charged thousands of dollars for these searches, but for our private coaching clients, we want to make certain that we have the correct terms for them.
8. One of the best places to put those key words are on the tabs for each page on your website.
Those tabs are found above the URL at the top of your page. Most designers will mark those tabs with your company name and the page name. You are better than that! You should not have it say “Yuloff Creative — Blog” but, instead “Top Business Coaching Team in the U.S.”
9. VIDEO — Add lots of it.
We have on our website, an on our radio show, The Marketing Checklist ( www.TheMarketingChecklist.com) many times discussed the importance of creating, using and promoting video for your business. There is a video on our YouTube channel as well which can teach you the basics. When we work with our private coaching clients, we create a list of all the videos that a business needs, and think you should do the same. Begin with a short video that goes on the front page of your web site, welcoming people TO your site. It should be short, less than a minute, and professionally created. If you are looking to learn how to improve your company website, use video as a major advance.
10. The language you use is very important. You should look to use language that speaks to your target market instead of using newspaper style which speaks of you in the third person.
If you would like help turning your website from a basic pamphlet that does not assist you in sales, into a major tool in the sales process, do what many others do, and head to www.FreeMarketingConsulation.com, take the short assessment, and choose a time in our calendar for us to speak with you. We guarantee you at least one thing that you can do immediately to improve your marketing in general and we can discuss how to improve your company website.
You can also call us at 800–705–4265, visit us at YuloffCreative.com and join us for our Small Business Breakthrough Bootcamps.
Originally published at https://yuloffcreativemarketingsolutions.com on April 28, 2019.