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We put so much time, effort and energy into the key functions of our business that we often overlook the importance and viability of our website. Our website should be the window into our business that our customers and potential customers readily look through. Is your window looking more like a door?

If I got a $1 for every person that has said “We’ve got a website because we know we should” I’d be very rich indeed! Yes, we all know we should have a website, but is it in fact your Achilles heel? What does your website say about you and your business? You need updating, you’re out of fashion (or fad), or just that there is nothing of value to a potential customer? If it is any of these, your potential clients are possibly looking at your competitor’s website right now!?

Take Action

Spring may almost have sprung but now is a good time to start reviewing your website and making a list of the spruces up that it needs.  You can action this list as part of your New Year resolutions or if you have time get started before you tuck into the Christmas turkey.

To help you get started here are the top ten things that you need to be looking at.

Top tips for your website

1. Review Your Content.  Ask yourself, ‘Is it current?’ It’s a sure fire way to lose attention and potential customers when the content is outdated. People do not want to see the Christmas special from 2005. It is also important to review the structure, spelling, and grammar of the content. Add your new services and if you are unsure on what to include, give me a call at Limelight Online – we have copywriting experts ready to help you.

2. Call to Actions. You want action right? Ensure you have strong and clear calls to action present on your site. These are subtle (and not so subtle) directives to motivate the website user to do something i.e. enrol now, call today, subscribe, download etc.

3. Add Images.  Do you have a new office building or new staff that are not featured? Check that all images on your website are relevant to you, your products and services, and your brand. Like your content, ensure that the images are of consistent quality and relevance.

4. E-commerce Updates. While the rest of your website is under scrutiny extend this to your e-commerce module (if applicable). Ensure that you have all items for sale on your site, that each has an appropriate description and that the price is correct. Extend this also to your shipping instructions and pricing.

5. Add Some New Testimonials. People love hearing about good service and quality products; if you have had some good feedback ask the customer if they were willing to put it to writing! By placing testimonials on a page the business becomes more human and people like to trust humans. A word of warning with testimonials:

• you need to maintain these so they are current (unless there is one that embraces everything you do or they are a very well known); a testimonial loses strength if it was a compliment given 5 years ago
• have a minimum of 2-3 testimonials on your site – having one testimonial makes it look like you got lucky!

6.  Check Your Forms. Possibly one of the biggest after-thoughts on a site. Ensure that the information that you are receiving via a form is in fact the most desirable information you want or need. Times have changed significantly so what was once relevant and important to you five years ago, may not be so now.

7. Contact details. Is your business’s contact details easy to find on your website? Is it prevalent or just hidden away in the footer?

The importance of what type of contact details will vary depending upon the nature of the business. For example, for an e-commerce store such as Torpedo7 you don’t need to know the physical address of the business, but you’d like to know their phone details and email contact details. Alternatively, for a physical store such as Bed, Bath & Beyond you would like to know the physical address, potential telephone contact details – the likelihood of needing an email address is potentially small.

8. Remove auto-playing of videos and music. Due to ‘mobile’ revolution, many of your customers or potential customers will view your site while on the go. Auto-playing videos and music will incur significant data downloads, something that the customer may not look favourably upon.

Something to also think about in regards to the mobile user is whether your site is responsive – can it be viewed on multiple devices? If not, someone viewing your site on a mobile or tablet, may in fact be not even be viewing your unique selling point (USP) and business can be lost. Need your website to be responsive? Limelight Online can take the headache out of design and development, so give us a call.

9. Menu. Apart from branding, one of the most important components of a website is the menu. Can users easily find what they are looking for on your site? Do you have one long page of services?  Is the About Us/Team missing? Make sure your menu is visible, is logical, and does what it says it is. If someone cannot find or navigate to what they are looking for within 5-10 seconds, they are about to leave your website!

10.  Google Analytics. Does your site have Google Analytics? Google Analytics are the statistics behind your website. You can determine where your customers are viewing from, the pathway they take through your site, how long they spend on a page, what pages they are viewing, whether they view on a mobile, and so on. All businesses should ‘know thy customer’, and Google Analytics is another tool that can help shape your offerings (and your website) when you have a true understanding of the motivations and actions a user has on your website.

If you don’t have Google Analytics, now is the time to get it added to your site. Talk to us and we’ll point you in the right direction.

Once you’ve undertaken the spring clean you’ll have that feeling of a light and airy, fresh and clean house (website) that you’ll want to invite everyone over to a bbq. It should be shared and not just something that you look at!

Got any more spring cleaning hints? I’d love to hear them in a thread below.

Image

Dirty Window by Sam, CC-BY-2.0