Having a website is a crucial thing in this era of internet business. The design of your website has a significant effect on the quality and credibility of your business.
Therefore, you have to make it look good enough to create the best first impression on your visitors and to reduce the bounce rate. Research shows that 59% of the people visiting a website will engage with the content if it’s an attractive and well-designed website. On the other hand, 38% of people will navigate away from a site if the layout or content are unattractive. The best way to get rid of such snap judgments is to create a perfect website with an attractive design.
Here are 12 essential tips for the ideal website
1. Improve the Website Load Time
How fast your site loads impact the number of visitors that you receive and retain. Research by Kissmetrics blog indicates that 40% of people abandon a site that loads for more than 3 seconds. The mobile pages that load faster with just a second experience a 27% higher rate of conversion. Test your page load time with a speed tester to have an idea of how long your web pages take to load. Pages that load faster are ranked up higher in Google’s search results. Thus, load time has an impact on your page SEO.
2. Monitor your Website Uptime
You can lose a bunch of visitors if your site is down, slow, or has errors. A report indicates that 88% of website visitors won’t return to a site after a bad experience. Monitor site’s uptime to ensure that you receive timely alerts and notifications when your site goes offline or is experiencing difficulties.
That will help you get your site back up before your visitors encounter the issue. Also, you need to create regular backups for your website security. Backups come in handy in unfortunate situations like when you accidentally lock yourself out or when your website is hacked. BlogVault, BoldGrid Backup, and BackupBuddy are some of the best WordPress backup plugins that you can use.
3. Enhance your Site for Conversions
Conversion is an essential part of online marketing. Keep your website design simple and easy to navigate to enhance conversion. You need to make it easy and straightforward for your visitors to get from one page to the next. Map out how the client will move from the landing page to the thank you page. Also, make sure that you have a clear way to get back to your landing page no matter where your readers land.
You can also convert visitors if you present them with freebies, demos, and offers that they will find attractive. Create resources that are competitive and unique. Make sure that what you’re doing is a step above your competitors and not a copy and paste from a competitor.
4. Make your Site Mobile Responsive
If a site is not mobile responsive, then you’re not providing optimal user experience. According to a report conducted in 2016 by OuterBox, over 62% of shoppers made purchases using their mobile phones.
Also, it indicated that more than 90% of shoppers use their smartphones to look at product reviews and compare prices when shopping in retail stores.
When visitors have a terrible mobile experience, 40% will check a competitor’s website that has a responsive mobile site.
5. Have a Clear Call to Action (C-T-A)
Create a compelling call to action to direct users and help them take the desired action. It will improve conversion rates, which ultimately enables you to achieve your desired business objectives. You can include a lead capture form which can be both a simple contact form and interest form for your subscribers.
If you have any products on sale, you can display them on your homepage and include their categories and tags to help people quickly find what they want to buy. The color of your C-T-A button can help increase the visibility of the button. Therefore you should use the color button that can convert best and use the same color for all your call to action buttons on your website.
6. Include Contact Information
Contact information is vital because it allows you to get connected to your potential clients. An estimated 44% of your website visitors will abandon it if there’s no contact information or phone number. Always update your contact information to help your clients reach you.
7. Use the Right Images
Most people are attracted to beautiful images. Images can spice things up and improve the user’s impression of a website. Use images that are relevant to the products and services that you are offering. Imagery can also affect the SEO and ranking of a webpage on Google. Choose images that communicate and effectively reinforces the brand. Also, have a logo that represents the brand identity.
8. Add Testimonial from Your Customers
Besides writing an action-packed copy, a testimonial is another vital section that can help add credibility to your business. You can include text and video testimonials from your users to show validation to new and potential clients. If you need inspiration on how to do it, you can get one from a few well-tested testimonial examples that actually work.
Create a page for testimonials or place them just above a call to action button. If you’re new in business, you can offer your products or services at a discount or for free to get people such as friends, peers, relatives, and even celebrities to leave a word of endorsement. Testimonials are effective selling mechanism, and you should have them on your website.
9. Track your Valuable Metrics
Tracking your relevant metrics is also vital to help you find out the number of visitors that you get on a given day or month. The Monster Insights Lite is one of the best free WordPress plugins that can help you track your website analytics. It can also help you track sales, newsletter sign-ups, how many people download your freebies, and even what most people are searching on your website.
10. Incorporate Social Share Buttons
Embed your social share buttons on every page. After every blog post, remind your clients to share your web journals on their social media platforms. That helps increase brand awareness and gives you more connections and referrals.