As we wrap up our “steps” theme to a better web presence, we can’t forget about optimizing your website. Optimizing your website will not only improve your search results but will also lead to more conversions. This step is often neglected since businesses tend to take a “build it and they will come” approach.
They put all their time and effort into redesigning a website that may be a great-looking site but it doesn’t add to the bottom line because it doesn’t rank well and/or convert to a sale.
Search engines are today’s business directories. Approximately 40-60 billion searches take place on Google each month, and over 80% of online searches result in direct sales or in-store visits. How can you make these statistics work for you? In this blog post, we’ll talk about a few easy steps you can take to optimize your website, drive more traffic to the site and get more conversions in the process.
1. Keywords, Page Titles and Content
Keywords
Knowing what terms that someone would use to search your business is critical. Tools such as the Spyfu and SEM Rush are helpful when doing this exercise. These tools can give you valuable information. For example, you can discover how often these terms and phrases are searched, along with what other companies in your space are using for keywords.
Page Titles
Each page should have a unique page title the gives users a quick idea of what content that page will contain and why they should click on the website. Also, page titles and title tags help improve your search rankings.
Website Content
As they say, content is king. Write engaging and useful content so your audience will keep coming back for more. This will establish you as a thought leader in your industry. Remember to use your keyword terms and phrases when writing your website copy, blogs, newsletters and videos.
2. What’s the Call to Action?
The goal of every website should be to convince the visitor that it is in their best interest to take the next step, which is a “conversion”. Here are a few types of call to action that can lead to a conversion:
- Sign up for a free trial
- Make a purchase
- Schedule an appointment
The text on your call to action needs to be clear so the website visitor knows what they should do. In addition, it should repeat in the design so it's easy to find.
3. Give your Site the Performance Test
Make sure that your site checks the boxes that Google is looking for. As part of their algorithm, Google not only likes rich content and keywords, but they want to make sure that if they are recommending a website (by ranking it higher) it needs to function overall to their standards.
Site Speed
A slow to load website does more than just frustrate the user; it can cause Google to penalize you and move you down in rankings. Images and videos that aren’t optimized are often the culprits so take the time to make the necessary changes to prevent your website from loading slowly.
Mobile Optimization
In this day and age, a mobile-friendly website is essential. More than half of all web traffic comes via a mobile device and your site needs to be easy to navigate as your customers are searching on the go. Google will penalize any site that isn’t mobile-friendly.
SSL Certificate
Having an SSL certificate shows the customer that their online transactions are secure and that their information is private. Google Chrome actually labels websites without SSL Certificates as “not secure” making them further suspect to users.
Extras
Items such as strong imagery, video reviews, customer testimonials and 404 pages are critical to providing clear messaging to your customers while pleasing Google.
4. Take a Look at the Competition
Take a look at your competitors' websites and note how it compares to yours. When you evaluate these websites, ask the following:
- How does the overall site design and ease of navigation compare to yours?
- Is the call to action clear and is it easy to determine how to order their products or services?
- How do they rank for the same terms you are trying to rank for?
Knowing how your rankings stack up against your competitors tells you where you need to make improvements.
5. Keep an Eye on It
Optimizing your website isn’t a one-time fix. Just as you are constantly looking to improve your offerings to your customers, your website should be no different.
Follow these guidelines to get started on the road to website optimization. Then, continue to tweak, test, and update the look of your site and how it performs to get the most out of your web presence.
If you have any questions concerning how you can better optimize your website feel free to reach out to us today.
