3 Surprising Things on Your Website that Are Preventing Your Business’s Growth

There’s no need to harp on about the massive importance of your website – in our screen-filled, Google-driven world, it’s no secret that a well-designed website is critical for any business anywhere. Where the question comes up is with that elusive term: well-designed. The Internet just might be the most rapidly changing entity on the planet: what’s popular today may have faded into oblivion by tomorrow. How, then, can you ensure that your website is equipped to drive growth and attract customers in our competitive digital landscape? More often than not, keeping your website current doesn’t have to require a massive, time-consuming overhaul. The way to maintain a sustainably effective website is to make small tweaks, consistently, aimed at optimizing the user experience it provides – and that starts with identifying what isn’t working. That’s why we’ve compiled this list of the 5 most surprising things on your website that are preventing your business’s growth. Let’s explore them and their more effective alternatives.

Yes, a picture is indeed worth a thousand words. Don’t get us wrong: photos remain an extremely effective way to convey key ideas about your business. A well-shot and well-edited series of photos can do wonders for your brand identity and your website’s readability. That said, one mistake made by far too many small business owners is to rely too much on photos, and not enough on video, on their websites. Added: Deleted: This poses a problem for your business for a variety of reasons, but especially this: video is dominating the internet. 51% of marketing professionals say that video is the type of content that brings in the most revenue, and it makes sense: one-third of the world’s online activity is – you guessed it – people watching videos. What does this mean? In short: when customers come to your website, they’re subconsciously expecting video – and, as a result, are less likely to engage with your message without it. The key for your website is to strike a careful balance: don’t overwhelm your visitors with several videos in every scroll – a handful of well-placed videos throughout your site, mixed-in with beautiful images, should suffice.

One of the most important tasks that marketers do in our digital age is to help websites turn up as high as possible on search engine results. This is done through a complicated, multi-tiered process called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). We can – and will – dedicate multiple blog posts to SEO itself, but suffice it to say that SEO involves using keywords throughout your website that match up with what your prospective customers are searching for. When implemented correctly, these keywords help your website turn up higher and higher in your potential customers’ search results, increasing the chances that they’ll choose your business above the competition. Deleted: Often, one of the biggest mistakes on a small business website is the misuse of keywords (contact the Immigation translation to get them right). Either they aren’t used at all, are misused, or the focus is placed on the wrong keywords: namely, short and generic keywords that thousands of other businesses are using, making it difficult to stand out from the competition on a search engine. What marketing teams do is come up with descriptive long-tail keywords that both capture what your customers are searching for and stand out from what your competitors are using for their own SEO (we told you this was a doozy!). Of course, there’s a lot more to search engine optimization than this very basic explanation. The best thing you can do when it comes to determining which keywords to use is to consult with a trusted marketing professional.

This is a great example of what we were talking about when we discussed how quickly Internet trends can change. A few years ago, business owners were advised to use more: more colors, more images, more information on their websites in order to capture customers’ attention. Nowadays, the opposite is true: less is undoubtedly more. Effective web design in 2020 is less about catching the eye with an overload of imagery and more about piquing interest with clean lines, simple font choices, and a few eye-catching images and videos. Deleted: When a website is overly cluttered, it can easily come across as too sales-y or disingenuous to consumers. The key is in well-thought-out copy and design that convey what your company is about without oversharing or seeming overeager. The modern consumer is inundated with imagery at every turn: from social media to digital ads, our sensibilities have been forcibly skewed toward minimalism by a digital landscape of excess. With a clean, easy-to-follow layout, well-crafted copy, and plenty of white space, your website will be optimized to make your customers feel at home.

Attracting new customers through your website involves what seems like a different strategy every year. By focusing on manageable incremental optimizations to your site with the help of a stellar marketing team, you’ll be well-equipped to stay relevant and appealing to your prospective customers online. If you’d like to learn more about website optimization, don’t hesitate to reach out to us..