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Have you ever looked at your website and wondered – “Is this website good enough for what I need? Will it help me achieve my business goals?”
In our day and age, every business owner is fully aware that running a successful business without the back-up of a solid online presence is nigh impossible. And, sooner or later, everyone invests in a website of their own. But just how effective is the website that you’re working on right now? How well does it convey your company’s mission and vision to your potential clients, landing on your homepage? Does it properly communicate the value that they’d get out of doing business with you?
Sadly, a lot of websites fail to tick a lot of necessary checkboxes, turning from an asset into a resource sink. But how can you tell that your business needs a new website? Here are the four main marks that each and every business-related website needs to hit:
- Conversion Rates
- Bounce Rates
- Mobile Optimisation
- Pride
Conversion rates
Ultimately, this is what every business website is about. No matter how well-optimised or professionally designed your website is, if it’s not converting then it isn’t doing its job.
Your conversion rate is mostly dependent on the following factors:
- Traffic sources
- Niche
- Call to action
Getting traffic is great but traffic alone doesn’t cut it.
If you are getting a lot of traffic, be it by virtue of search engine optimisation, social media marketing, or paid advertisements, you can generally tell that your website is doing well. But this won’t translate to business success unless those visitors turn into leads.
If your website isn’t generating enough leads for the amount of traffic that it’s getting, this means that something is wrong – it’s either unappealing and unclear or difficult to navigate. Remember – just because your website looks good in your eyes, doesn’t necessarily mean that it appeals to your potential customers! Just as everything else in the business field, your site must be built with what your customer wants, needs and likes.
Worse yet, some websites have no tracking implementations whatsoever. This simple rookie mistake prevents business owners from being able to evaluate the performance of their online asset, invalidating almost all digital marketing efforts.
Bounce Rates
Once visitors find your website and land on your homepage, you want them to stick around for as long as possible, explore your website, and ideally – get in touch with you. The longer they stay on your site the better, as this gives your digital assets more time to do their job. If your visitors are leaving quickly, however, it means that you’ve got a problem on your hands.
If visitors are leaving your website without bothering to check at least one additional page on their way out, this can mean that something is really wrong. The most common reasons for a high bounce rate are:
- Slow page loading times – nobody is going to want to wait for your page to load for longer than a second or two, no matter how pretty it is!
- Inadequate internal linking – you want the pages that rank the best in Google to point your visitors towards the most exciting parts of your website!
- Bad layouts & design – as noted above, it is crucial that your website is appealing to the eyes of your potential customer!
- Lack of clarity – in business, everything needs to be crystal clear and easy to understand!
- Lack of mobile optimisation – a huge percentage of people browse the internet from their phones and tablets. If your website does not work well with mobile devices, you’re missing out on a significant portion of potential clients!
Mobile Optimisation
The mobile optimisation “craze” has long since passed, but that doesn’t mean you can afford to ignore mobile browsing! Digital marketers have simply stopped talking about it as much because it’s now one of the baseline trends in website development. If you’ve got a website in 2019, it simply has to be completely mobile-friendly, there’s no way around it. As a matter of fact, if you were to do a bit of mobile browsing yourself, you’d be hard-pressed to find a website that doesn’t tick this checkbox!
Not only is mobile friendliness crucial for user experience, but it is also of vital importance for ranking well on Google search results! That’s because Google wants users to be as comfortable as possible during their online journeys and if your website isn’t capable of providing them with an adequate experience, it will get penalised by the algorithms!
So if your website isn’t optimised for mobile devices, you’re not just losing out on conversions, but on traffic as well!
But mobile friendliness goes much deeper than the mere basic functionality tests, presented by Google. As we mentioned above, user experience is the cornerstone of every successful business website. So if your Google Analytics is showing worse conversions for mobile than for desktop, you might want to focus on the experience of your users a tad more. Mobile experience encompasses everything from the design and position of your menus, buttons, and other interactive elements, all the way to functionality implementations like user accounts, logins and shopping options.
Your website should fill you with pride!
If at any point in time you feel like your website isn’t a worthy representation of your business, if you feel uncomfortable with the idea that important clients will have to go through your website, that’s a huge red flag.
Remember – your website is your representative in the online world, the digital face of your business. It should be your pride and joy, a testament to your confidence and credibility. So, if you’re embarrassed by it, you should consider making changes.
If you think that you might need a new website, don’t hesitate to send a link our way, for a complimentary no-strings-attached consultation!