5 Tips to Improve Your Website

Having a website is an important part of your marketing plan.  However, developing a website sometimes seems complicated and overwhelming.  Here’s a few tips you should follow to create a website that’s easy to use and will keep your clients coming back. 

1)      Include contact information on every page.   Be sure to make it easy for clients to contact you either by including an e-mail address, phone number or a link to a contact form on each page of your website.  People are lazy.  If they want to contact you and can’t easily find your contact information, they’ll leave your website.  And, you won’t have their business.

2)      Make sure everything works.   If you include links, video, or have widgets for auto-responders, be sure to test them and make sure they work.  People will make assumptions about the quality of your business based on your website.  Don’t lose business because you have website widgets that don’t work. 

3)      Update your calendar and content.  If your website includes announcements of special events or promotions, be sure to update these regularly.  Don’t let calendar items that have passed languish on your website for months on end.  It creates a bad impression.  Also, be sure to provide fresh, updated content to your blog on a regular basis.   When it’s obvious new articles haven’t been added for several months, that also creates a bad impression.  New, fresh content will not only keep your customers coming back, but it will also help improve your search engine ranking. 

4)      Keep your visitors on your site.  When writing blog articles, you may be tempted to provide links to other sites for reference information or to provide your reader with videos or photos of your subject matter.  Certainly, that’s tempting.   However, by providing these links you’re inviting your website visitor to leave your site.  Why would you do that?  If you need to provide photos or videos, create them yourself and include them on your blog. 

5)      Check your share buttons.  Social media is a powerful marketing tool.  If you include social media buttons such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ on your website, make sure you’re updating those sites as well.  All three allow you to create profile pages, which you should do for your business. 

Creating a website is the first step in creating an online marketing plan, follow these simple tips to make your website a powerful marketing tools and user friendly.