A primary function of a business website is to attract new customers. As such, it’s crucial for companies to ensure that their website represents them in the best possible light and appeal to their target audience or make changes to fit the audience.
However, business owners may not always know how to make a site attractive to users, especially if they’re not well-versed in UX or web design. Fortunately, a little effort in this area can go a long way in improving how consumers experience your brand online.
Below, the members of Forbes Agency Council share 16 simple changes that can make your business website and your brand more appealing to potential customers.
1. Work On The User Experience
Put yourself in your customers’ shoes to make sure that the site is intuitive to navigate and information is easy to find. Study bounce rates and time spent on each page to make improvements based on what the customer data is revealing. Have a good call to action that pushes the visitor in the right direction along with a simple way to get in contact with you. – Michelle Abdow, Market Mentors, LLC
2. Make It A Step In Your Sales Funnel
Your website is a step in your sales funnel. Your visitor came through ads, social media, SEO, word of mouth or a newsletter. Chances are, they already know what you do. Once on the website, they are probably looking to know why they should choose you. Then, think about the next step in the conversion and call the potential client to action to close. Send them to a form, a sale or phone call! – Jonathan Laberge, Reptile
3. Make It Easier To Take Action
Remember, you are not your customer. What is important to you may not be what is important to them. Make sure the first thing they see easily tells them who you are, what you offer and how they can purchase. Building A StoryBrand by Donald Miller nails it by teaching: “Don’t make your client burn calories trying to figure out what you do.” Simplify your website message and make it easier to take action. – Katie Harris, Spot On Solutions
4. Update It Frequently
Focus on frequent updates, counterbalancing relevance and brand resonance. Make sure that product and service offerings displayed on a site are in line with market demand and the current business plan. Something that was a relevant year ago may not resonate with your audience today. Keep the alignment between offline and online brand experience by focusing on what matters. – Goran Paun, ArtVersion
5. Clean It Up And Make It Simple
Go through your website and ask yourself honestly if anyone is going to use or read your content. Then, look at your analytics to verify whether anyone actually reads that page of content. If not, cut it in half, clarify your message and improve its readability. People buy the things they understand the fastest. – Greg Trimble, Lemonade Stand
6. Give It A ‘Content Refresh’
I believe 2021 is the year of the “content refresh.” Google has added a lot of emphasis to UX and content guidelines. It’s the perfect time to reduce new content, reevaluate, refresh and revamp older content based on how users are searching, and answer more questions to see more engagement. – Alex Valencia, We Do Web Content
7. Make It Intuitive For Users
View it from your customer’s perspective. Make it intuitive for them as they discover, learn, compare and convert. Your website should be an experience that smoothly guides the customer through your sales funnel and removes obstacles (and extra clicks) along the way. One quick and easy way to begin this is by reviewing and optimizing the navigation menu so that it enables the customer path. – Korena Keys, KeyMedia Solutions
8. Incorporate Your Core Business KPIs
Functionality and measurement are key to successful websites. A website can be designed beautifully, but if it is not crafted with your core business KPIs in mind, then it will not be successful. Identify the actions you want your customers to take and create a system of enablement. – Michael Kalman, MediaCrossing Inc.
9. Call Out Your Customers’ Biggest Pain Point
Call out your ideal customer’s biggest pain point that you can solve. Put it front and center and identify yourself as the solution. They visited to move toward solving their problem. They are not there for your biography. – Robert Warner, InvisiblePPC
10. Improve The Speed
Website speed is the low-hanging yet unpicked fruit of user experience. Few websites are hosted at fast hosting providers. Too many websites have slow plugins that are convenient for website builders, but terrible for speed and there are changes that need to be made to fix this issue. Google’s PageSpeed Insights tells you more than you want to know about your poor performance. – Jim Caruso, M1PR, Inc. d/b/a MediaFirst PR – Atlanta
11. Commit To Regular Site Reviews
The simple change is committing to regular reviews of your site. Bring in people who have no affiliation with you or your company and watch as they navigate your website. Ask them to find specific information. See how much time they spend engaging with the content. Are they struggling? Disinterested? Then, ask for their feedback. If reviewers bring up the same weaknesses, fix those problems. – Scott Greggory, MadAveGroup
12. Develop A Unique Point Of View Around Your Offerings
Having a unique POV around your service offerings can allow you to stand out from typical business websites. Case studies with engaging infographics and informative, easily shared videos that break down your services can also retain users, keep them from bouncing and, ultimately, convert them. – Larry Gurreri, Sosemo LLC
13. Put Customer Stories Front And Center
Make case studies, testimonials and reviews more visible on the website’s homepage and landing page. Competing companies can offer very similar services, but case studies, testimonials and reviews provide real-life examples of how the product/service provided value. Clients and customers want real results. Highlighting case studies, testimonials and reviews is the best way to showcase tangible impact. – Stefan Pollack, The Pollack Group
14. Weave In Your Values And Mission
One of the biggest changes in website and user experiences coming out of 2020 is the value and power of weaving brand stories, values and mission into what had been optimized into just being transactional sites. Consumers care more than they did in the past about what the brands they engage with stand for, and communicating it is a powerful way to build loyalty as well as move them away from decisions made solely on price. – Michael Mothner, Wpromote
15. Provide Informative And Non-Promotional Content
Provide visitors with informative, non-promotional content they can use whether they’re ready to purchase your products or not. If government regulations in your industry are changing, for example, explain what the changes mean in simple terms and what organizations will need to do to get in compliance with the website. If you give them answers, they’ll develop an affinity for your brand. – Jodi Amendola, Amendola Communications
16. Use Artificial Intelligence For Better SEO
We are always evolving our offerings, and we update our website accordingly. In sync with these updates, we use AI to fuel stronger SEO and align our site content with buyer need and market interest and demand. In addition, resonating with prospects is critical, and we use case studies and testimonials to demonstrate that we know how to successfully address the challenges our prospects face. – Paula Chiocchi, Outward Media, Inc.
Put yourself in your customers’ shoes to make sure that the site is intuitive to navigate and information is easy to find. Study bounce rates and time spent on each page to make improvements based on what the customer data is revealing. Have a good call to action that pushes the visitor in the right direction along with a simple way to get in contact with you. – Michelle Abdow, Market Mentors, LLC
2. Make It A Step In Your Sales Funnel
Your website is a step in your sales funnel. Your visitor came through ads, social media, SEO, word of mouth or a newsletter. Chances are, they already know what you do. Once on the website, they are probably looking to know why they should choose you. Then, think about the next step in the conversion and call the potential client to action to close. Send them to a form, a sale or phone call! – Jonathan Laberge, Reptile
3. Make It Easier To Take Action
Remember, you are not your customer. What is important to you may not be what is important to them. Make sure the first thing they see easily tells them who you are, what you offer and how they can purchase. Building A StoryBrand by Donald Miller nails it by teaching: “Don’t make your client burn calories trying to figure out what you do.” Simplify your website message and make it easier to take action. – Katie Harris, Spot On Solutions
4. Update It Frequently
Focus on frequent updates, counterbalancing relevance and brand resonance. Make sure that product and service offerings displayed on a site are in line with market demand and the current business plan. Something that was a relevant year ago may not resonate with your audience today. Keep the alignment between offline and online brand experience by focusing on what matters. – Goran Paun, ArtVersion
5. Clean It Up And Make It Simple
Go through your website and ask yourself honestly if anyone is going to use or read your content. Then, look at your analytics to verify whether anyone actually reads that page of content. If not, cut it in half, clarify your message and improve its readability. People buy the things they understand the fastest. – Greg Trimble, Lemonade Stand
6. Give It A ‘Content Refresh’
I believe 2021 is the year of the “content refresh.” Google has added a lot of emphasis to UX and content guidelines. It’s the perfect time to reduce new content, reevaluate, refresh and revamp older content based on how users are searching, and answer more questions to see more engagement. – Alex Valencia, We Do Web Content
7. Make It Intuitive For Users
View it from your customer’s perspective. Make it intuitive for them as they discover, learn, compare and convert. Your website should be an experience that smoothly guides the customer through your sales funnel and removes obstacles (and extra clicks) along the way. One quick and easy way to begin this is by reviewing and optimizing the navigation menu so that it enables the customer path. – Korena Keys, KeyMedia Solutions
8. Incorporate Your Core Business KPIs
Functionality and measurement are key to successful websites. A website can be designed beautifully, but if it is not crafted with your core business KPIs in mind, then it will not be successful. Identify the actions you want your customers to take and create a system of enablement. – Michael Kalman, MediaCrossing Inc.
9. Call Out Your Customers’ Biggest Pain Point
Call out your ideal customer’s biggest pain point that you can solve. Put it front and center and identify yourself as the solution. They visited to move toward solving their problem. They are not there for your biography. – Robert Warner, InvisiblePPC
10. Improve The Speed
Website speed is the low-hanging yet unpicked fruit of user experience. Few websites are hosted at fast hosting providers. Too many websites have slow plugins that are convenient for website builders, but terrible for speed and there are changes that need to be made to fix this issue. Google’s PageSpeed Insights tells you more than you want to know about your poor performance. – Jim Caruso, M1PR, Inc. d/b/a MediaFirst PR – Atlanta
11. Commit To Regular Site Reviews
The simple change is committing to regular reviews of your site. Bring in people who have no affiliation with you or your company and watch as they navigate your website. Ask them to find specific information. See how much time they spend engaging with the content. Are they struggling? Disinterested? Then, ask for their feedback. If reviewers bring up the same weaknesses, fix those problems. – Scott Greggory, MadAveGroup
12. Develop A Unique Point Of View Around Your Offerings
Having a unique POV around your service offerings can allow you to stand out from typical business websites. Case studies with engaging infographics and informative, easily shared videos that break down your services can also retain users, keep them from bouncing and, ultimately, convert them. – Larry Gurreri, Sosemo LLC
13. Put Customer Stories Front And Center
Make case studies, testimonials and reviews more visible on the website’s homepage and landing page. Competing companies can offer very similar services, but case studies, testimonials and reviews provide real-life examples of how the product/service provided value. Clients and customers want real results. Highlighting case studies, testimonials and reviews is the best way to showcase tangible impact. – Stefan Pollack, The Pollack Group
14. Weave In Your Values And Mission
One of the biggest changes in website and user experiences coming out of 2020 is the value and power of weaving brand stories, values and mission into what had been optimized into just being transactional sites. Consumers care more than they did in the past about what the brands they engage with stand for, and communicating it is a powerful way to build loyalty as well as move them away from decisions made solely on price. – Michael Mothner, Wpromote
15. Provide Informative And Non-Promotional Content
Provide visitors with informative, non-promotional content they can use whether they’re ready to purchase your products or not. If government regulations in your industry are changing, for example, explain what the changes mean in simple terms and what organizations will need to do to get in compliance with the website. If you give them answers, they’ll develop an affinity for your brand. – Jodi Amendola, Amendola Communications
16. Use Artificial Intelligence For Better SEO
We are always evolving our offerings, and we update our website accordingly. In sync with these updates, we use AI to fuel stronger SEO and align our site content with buyer need and market interest and demand. In addition, resonating with prospects is critical, and we use case studies and testimonials to demonstrate that we know how to successfully address the challenges our prospects face. – Paula Chiocchi, Outward Media, Inc.
Article Provided By Forbes
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