Last Updated on October 24, 2024.
In the past ten years, I’ve definitely built at least 100 websites (which may be on the lower end), so not only have I seen trends change, but I have also seen what consistently works. The most important thing I’ve learned is that a website is not just a digital business card. It’s a powerful interactive marketing tool, lead generation engine, and customer service platform – it’s you when you are not around to provide that information. And that alone can help you achieve your business goals when leveraged correctly.
In today’s digital age, having a strong web presence is essential for small businesses. And for a business owner, transforming your business website into a powerful tool that works for you is the best way to do this, whether you’re looking to attract new customers, showcase your products or services, or even establish an online store.
So how do you make your website work for you? Let’s dive in and discuss seven key areas to transform your website to work harder for you and your business with the best practices and strategies, such as optimizing your website design, creating great content, and working on your SEO to boost your online presence.
1. Define Website Goals
This should be no secret; we are constantly settings goals and projects – you also want to ensure that your website ALSO has those goals. This should ultimately align with your business goals, so the first step is to consider what you want your website to achieve or to do for the business. And while there are many different goals a website can have, they typically fall into one of these three broad categories:
Awareness Goals
- How many people are you trying to get to visit your website monthly?
- What are some ways you will reach more people to increase general awareness of your site?
- Some approaches to this are organic search and social media; depending on your industry, Pinterest can be particularly beneficial.
Engagement Goals
- You got them to the website, but are they sticking around?
- Looking at metrics such as bounce rate, time spent on the page and how many pages viewed will help you determine if you are reaching your target audience in the awareness stage.
Conversion Goals
- You managed to keep them, but how many are converting?
- Your website should have opportunities for conversions that are not paid, such as lead magnets or a newsletter, to be able to nurture those who are still waiting to be ready to purchase.
- And, of course, you can also measure your overall conversion to purchase here if your website has that capability.
Defining your website goals will ensure that every element created – from the design and user experience to the content and call-to-actions – will work together to help you reach your target audience and bring them down the funnel (or around the flywheel?)
2. Create a Website User Experience
As part of your engagement goal, you measure how many people interact with your website, and creating an incredible user experience is key to that. Ensuring that a website is mobile-friendly and good on a mobile device is the floor; a thought-out user experience (UX) is the ultimate key to visitors using your website and returning when they need additional information.
While you may have already chosen this, the flip side to a website’s user experience is the business name and your web address. Without a good domain name, it will be impossible for people to remember your website’s address, no matter how great and relevant your content is. It’s an easy way to lose website traffic if they cannot visit your website. Ensure that part is straightforward while you continue addressing other ways to make your website work for you.
When it comes to specifically their experience – start by thinking about the audiences visiting the website and what information they need to make their next decision, then design everything based on that information – from your navigation to your home page, to tone and calls to action to what sections appear above the fold. In a good website, everything should be tailored to the audience’s experience. Everything should be quick and easy to find, accessible to them and focused on their needs rather than yours.
3. Use Content Marketing on the website
Content marketing is a marketing strategy that entails creating and publishing consistent valuable content to your content management system to gain your target audience’s attention and possible future purchases. It’s an ongoing process that helps you attract attention and build an audience over time, or what I like to call the marketing long game. But, in the realm of your website – it can help you grow your brand and ensures that you have content that will make your website work for you by allowing you to:
- build trust and credibility with your audience by showing your expertise,
- create an engaged community by building an emotional connection and creating relationships with customers,
- create valuable content that can be shared across channels,
- improve your search engine optimization and increase overall visibility,
- connect with other bloggers and influencers in your industry,
- have a source to assist with lead generation and sales.
4. Incorporate Lead Generation on the website
While you are working on your content marketing efforts to bring customers to your website, you should ensure that once they arrive, they can convert into a lead, which means you now know who they are and how to contact them.
The easiest way is to have a newsletter subscription form on your website. But what I recommend, since it is more beneficial to your consumer, is to exchange information with them. You can provide a valuable resource such as a quote, checklist, eBook, white paper or the like to exchange for their contact information.
Another way to generate leads is to make it easy for website visitors to contact you and request more information by placing forms where they may need additional information from you.
5. Sell Products or Services Directly on the Website
This sounds like a no-brainer, but it depends on what you are selling since some services need some additional information before you can make the sale. But giving your consumer the ability to purchase directly from your website is definitely one way to make your website work for you! And if your site does have that capability, then the overall goal of your site should be to make it easy for visitors to buy products or services from you. If not, the overall goal should be to ensure that it is easy for your potential customers to inquire about your products and services.
6. Optimize the Website
Doing all of the above will definitely optimize the website. But there is one more important thing you want to make sure you take into consideration – search engine optimization, or the process of making sure your website is seen by search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo so the site can appear in search results. And while SEO cannot be wholly summarized in this blog, there are three types of SEO to be aware of – on-page and off-page SEO and technical SEO. Optimizing these elements can improve your website’s visibility and attract more visitors.
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO consists of optimizing your website’s content and structure to make it more visible and relevant to search engines. Some important items to look at here are:
- quality of content,
- keyword research and optimization,
- title tags and header tags,
- meta descriptions,
- image optimization and ALT tags,
- internal links,
- URLs.
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO consists of driving awareness and traffic to your other site from other websites, as well as social media and other online platforms. Some important items to look at here are:
- backlinks on other sites,
- website listings,
- guest posts.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO consists of optimizing your website and server, which helps spiders crawl and index your website more easily and efficiently, raising your search engine rankings. Some important items to look at here are:
- site security/SSL,
- site speed,
- schema markup,
- canonicalization,
- indexation and site maps,
- herflang.
7. Monitor and Conduct Website Audits
Your amazing website will be your marketing tool, lead generation engine, and customer service platform. But, like any tool, it needs to be well-maintained to be effective, so you should monitor your website monthly and conduct a website audit quarterly or, at the very least, yearly.
Monthly, you should look at your website’s analytics and determine if you are reaching your goals or if there is a gap anywhere. Consider A/B testing, surveys or polls, or installing heat maps to gather more information if your website needs to convert more leads and/or sales.
On the other hand, a website audit is a review of your site. You’ll want to closely examine all aspects of your site, including performance, functionality, SEO, design and content. Remove any broken links or outdated content. See if there are any gaps in the user experience to ensure it is still meeting the needs of your target audience. Websites are not static and you’ll be surprised, but as your website grows, it becomes easier for it to get increasingly convoluted.
Making your website work for you requires considering it an entity that needs regular care and attention. But by using these website strategies, you can be sure to attain your website goals.
