In the Digital Era, having a website is a must for both international corporations and small local businesses. Still, many entrepreneurs fall into the trap by thinking that a finished website is a job well-done that doesn’t require any further investments or work.
Your web presentation is not much different from your business offer. It needs to be changed, optimized and updated on a regular basis, or it will quickly become obscure. You’ve probably seen business websites that look like they are still in the 2000s. These platforms do more harm than good to the company’s reputation and can confuse visitors and make them look for competitive offers.
Of course, business website updates shouldn’t only focus on web design improvements. The latest technologies enable new features, and entrepreneurs should constantly look for the optimal set of functionalities that will be useful for their clients. In this article, we’ve shared some of the techniques and tricks that will help you to make the most out of your business website.
Adequate hosting
The hosting market offers dozens of different packages. Big websites purchase private hosting because it allows them to take the whole server and improves their platform’s speed. Small companies usually rely on shared hosting, which is the most affordable option and it comes with the same level of support as all the other packages. Since most small business websites use WordPress CMS for web development, there is a special package adapted for WordPress hosting.
Google Analytics
Every business website needs an analytics platform. Google Analytics is the most popular platform of this kind, and most businesses choose it because it offers a long list of premium features completely free of charge. With Google Analytics, you can measure very specific parameters and follow your visitors across the web. By doing this, you’ll improve your website prospects and superb A/B testing features will help you to choose the most effective layouts and calls to action. This app is very easy to install. You just need to embed a short code snippet into your website header.
Make your website responsive
Since 2015, Google has started to penalize unresponsive web pages. In addition to this, around the same year, mobile internet users finally outnumbered the desktop ones. So, if you want to target millions of mobile consumers with your offer, you’ll need to make your website responsive. Today, most WordPress themes come with responsive layouts. Other CMSs, like Drupal, also offer responsive themes and modules. If you plan to add more functionalities to your platform and pack them into widgets, you can use Bootstrap, which is the most popular open-source front-end framework for easier web development. Bootstrap allows you to use its HTML, CSS and JavaScript code to create responsive layouts, grids, tables, and forms.
Keep it fresh
Regularly updated websites are always ranked higher on search engines. So use your website for presenting new products, promoting special offers and providing content that will be interesting and helpful for your target audience. Adding a blog to this mix will turn your webmaster work into a habit and posting content on a regular basis will drastically increase your SEO prospects. Keep an eye on how other websites are showing on SERPs, and take notes of what’s most attractive on them. Regularly comparing what your website looks like on SERPs with how your competition looks, for any given keywords, can occasionally inspire you to know exactly how you need your website to be to generate the traffic you want.
Optimize your website for search engines
SEO is a very complex term. It encompasses a long list of tasks from optimizing your text with adequate keywords, to changing your code and building backlinks on other authority websites and platforms. Good SEO provides amazing benefits to website owners. Ranking high on search engines can drastically boost the visitors’ influx, and adequate website navigation and appealing calls to action can drive your conversion and profits. Since the number of backlinks is a very important criterion for a successful SEO, guest posting and sharing your content on other websites and platforms will improve your SEO ranking, allow you to show off your expertise and improve your company’s reputation.
Content marketing
We have already mentioned that high ranking on search engines requires you to post good-quality content on a regular basis. By optimizing your content and adapting it to fit the interests and needs of your target audience, you are also adding more value to your website and turning it into a niche-specific encyclopedia. The purpose of content marketing campaigns is to attract the consumers who fit your buyer persona profile with exclusive information or interesting, helpful or humorous content. If target consumers keep visiting your website on a daily basis, one day or the other they will find the offer they like and decide to make a purchase.
Promote your website on social networks
Social media marketing can drastically improve your website’s popularity. Same as with content marketing, interesting social media posts with links to your website will draw more visitors to your page and allow you to convert them. Today, social networks offer great analytics, which allows you to measure how many consumers have visited your website through the post link. You can also conduct A/B testing and determine what type of post provides the best consumer response. Facebook went ahead of all other social networks by introducing Facebook Pixel. This small piece of code allows you to set different goals and identify their completion by visitors that came to your website through social media links.
Running a business website is not an easy task. In addition to all the tricks we’ve already mentioned, there are numerous other functionalities that will make your website more modern and functional. For example, introducing a live chat feature to your platform will allow consumers to contact you at any given time. By investing money in your website, you are creating a great commercial for your business. In the digital world, people often assess businesses by the look of their web presentations. That’s why smart web development investments can help you to reach new customers and make the current ones more loyal.
