When it comes to defeating your competition, you will want to ensure that every facet of your business is head-and-shoulders above the rest. And, thanks to society’s reliance on mobile technology, internet research, and online purchasing, your website needs to shine.
Not sure where to concentrate your efforts? Here are five tips to help you get started.
1. Go Mobile
One of the most important features of any website is that it’s mobile-friendly. After all, as “How to Make Your Home Inspection Business Site Better Than Your Competitor’s” states, more Americans access the Internet on their mobile phones than their PCs. This means you will need to ensure that your site’s display automatically configures itself to fit whatever screen it is being viewed on, that it is easy to navigate using a touch screen, and that it is not overloaded with text.
2. Keep it Polished
Your website’s design needs to be both user-friendly and eye-appealing. To create the ideal finished product, there are a few industry standards that need to be followed. CIO‘s “13 Tips for Improving Your Web Design” provides valuable insight into how to go about creating an esthetically pleasing site, including ridding your pages of excess visual clutter, allowing for adequate space between paragraphs and images, using professionally photographed pictures, opting for easy-to-read fonts, and avoiding large walls of text. Visit some of your favorite websites and ask yourself, “What is it about this site that makes it so appealing?”
3. Post Quality Content
The best way to attract people to your site and keep them there is to offer timely and share-worthy content that is well-written, accurate, and fresh. Whether you opt to have your posts penned by yourself, a staff member, a freelance writer, or you invite industry experts to guest blog, you must ensure that the writing is of the highest caliber.
Entrepreneur also recommends that a great deal of attention is paid to your headline as 8 out of 10 people will read the title and not the rest of your content. If you want to grab their attention and hold it, you need a headline that will hook them and reel them in.
4. Give Users a Voice
One of your website’s many jobs is to foster a closer relationship between your customers and your brand–and this means ensuring that your clients feel valued. To let them know that their opinions and concerns matter, you need to ensure that you invite their feedback on your website.
Some of the ways that you can generate user content are to allow them to comment on blog posts, participate in polls, share their testimonials, and post reviews. Not only will this make them feel heard, but it will also make your site appear more trustworthy to other viewers.
5. Be Succinct
When it comes to online text, less is always more. Unlike the readers of traditional print advertisements, internet users have a shorter attention span and a lower tolerance for wordiness. Weed out your yadda-yadda-yadda’s and your blah-blah-blah’s and, instead, ensure that you have communicated your message in a concise manner. If you don’t, you will miss many opportunities to share your news.
These five tips will provide you with an excellent starting point for constructing a new and improved website. And there is no better time to get started than the present.
Have you recently introduced improvements to your corporate website? What changes worked? Which didn’t?
