The new year is upon us and now is a good time to evaluate your website and see if it’s really as good as it can be.
If you want your website to be successful, follow these tips and strategies that are sure to give you a competitive edge in 2019 and beyond.
Tip #1: Ensure Your Website is Fast and Optimized for Mobile
With the huge increase in smartphone usage, you probably realise the importance of a mobile friendly website. But one thing tha’s often overlooked is the speed. Many websites perform quite well on the desktop version, but are often slow at loading on mobile phones.
If you focus on a fast loading and mobile friendly experience, your visitors are more likely to convert to enquiries and sales. Furthermore, Google will also use this as a ranking factor and reward you for having a faster site.
You can check your website performance on Google’s PageSpeed Insights and see their recommendations.
There are many ways to speed up your website but simply optimizing your images can be a good start. You may also find that your current website host isn’t up to the job, so you could consider upgrading your package or finding a better host.
Tip #2: Add More Visual Content to Your Website
You can’t ignore the power of visual content on the likes of Facebook and Instagram. People respond to visuals better than words. Why not go through your website copy and see if you can replace some of it with engaging visual content such as photographs, infographics or video.
The quality of your visual content is important. Try to avoid stock photography and consider using a professional photographer. You could also put an Instagram feed on your website to show a bit of personality.
Tip #3: Improve Your Website Copy
Find out what your target audience like, want or need. Just focus on this group and make your website copy more useful and relevant for them, instead of trying to reach a wider audience.
As well as being useful and relevant, your copy should be friendly, conversational and easy to understand.
Using attention grabbing headlines aimed at your target audience is important. The kind of headline that will resonate with them, making them stick around on your website and take action.
Tip #4: Simplify Your Site
Take a look at your website and see if you can simplify it. Reduce the amount of choices a user has to avoid them getting too overwhelmed. They are more likely to take action if they have less choices to make.
Think about what you want your website visitor to do and stick to one goal per page. For example, if you want them to contact you, direct their attention to a contact form and make it clear what they need to do.
Tip #5: Optimize Video for Mobile
The popularity of online video has been growing considerably and is probably your biggest marketing tool. Users love video because it’s easy to digest, entertaining and engaging.
According to Cisco, video will account for 78% of mobile traffic by 2021.
Now is the time to take advantage of the rise in mobile video consumption on smartphones, so here are some ideas to help you prepare your videos for mobile:
- Keep your videos short
- Capture the user’s attention in the first 3 seconds
- Make your videos bold
- Use text to help sound-off viewing
- Use a square video format for better engagement
For inspiration, just look at some of the these Instagram videos.
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Check out our other informative article: 7 Ingredients of a Successful Website