Are you frustrated that your website isn’t performing as you had hoped? Unfortunately that happens all too often. You spent a lot of money building a new website and it just isn’t making the phone ring or filling out online contact forms on your site. Or you’ve had your website for a while, and it used to work well but it no longer is findable when your customers search for your business.
Reasons Why Your Website Isn’t Performing
There are many things that you should evaluate when to determine why your website is not performing. These include the design and layout of the site, including:
- Clear calls to action (what do you want the site visitor to do?) – Is it easy for a visitor to contact your business, or take that next step to engage with your business (such as downloading a checklist or ebook)?
- Navigation – is it easy for site visitors to find what they are looking for? Provide a clear path to other pages on your site. Navigation links should be at the top of the page with a search box, if possible.
- Your Homepage isn’t clear – Do you have a clear description on your homepage about what problems you solve, how you are different, and any “credibility badges” – things like awards, certifications, memberships and associations. You must quickly capture your audience with a clear and concise headline that summarizes your site. Also include social proof, such as testimonials.
- Your website isn’t findable. Is your business showing up for searches for the keywords you want to rank for? Don’t just consider the products or services that you offer, but also include what problems you solve (think like your potential customer.
- Your website isn’t mobile friendly, or doesn’t load quickly – Google is prioritize mobile now that the majority of searches are done from a mobile device. Slow load times, and having a site that isn’t mobile friendly (responsive – meaning that the user has to pinch of zoom the site to read it on their phone) are increasingly important.
The web is not static – competitors, Google algorithm changes, user behavior – these all change. In fact, this change is happening faster and faster. It’s no longer practical to build a website and not keep it up to date and expect it to perform well.
What to do to Improve Website Performance
A website… heck Marketing… has to begin with strategy. Developing a core message, understanding why your best customers do business with you, doing research on the industry and the competition, addressing the problems you solve for your customers, building know like and trust, all these things are critical to develop a homepage and a website that performs.
It’s really hard to create differentiation without strategy and research. It’s also really hard to do search engine optimization without strategy and research.
So focusing on strategy first is key to helping your website perform the way you want. From the research that you do, you can determine the best keyword phrases to optimize for, how to compete and win against the competition, and how to zero in on your ideal customer.
It’s important to realize that the performance of your website is more than just the website itself. Just because you have a website doesn’t me that anyone will find it, or do what you want them to do when they go to your website. While your website is a critical and irreplaceable component of your marketing efforts, it can’s just stand alone.
Another really important thing to consider is to conduct a total online presence audit. This helps to establish a benchmark and a baseline of your current online presence, as well as how you’re stacking up against your competitors. A total online presence audit should include:
- Reviewing your website including structure and conversion factors
- Analysis of your SEO that includes on-page and off-page SEO, along with local SEO considerations
- A snapshot of current keyword rankings
- Analysis of how effective your content is
- Analysis of your social media presence
- Findings on how your business is listed online, including any inconsistencies with the Name Address and Phone Number (NAP) data
- Your online reputation
- An Analysis of the competitive landscape
Measuring Traffic, Keyword Ranking Over Time, Conversions and Calls to Actions. Test, Optimize, Measure – you can do this quickly and affordably online. And it is essential to making your website perform the way you want and expect.
What are some of the other things you recommend to improve the performance of a website?
Get a Total Online Presence Audit
Changescape Web offers a Total Online Presence Audit for $799. If you need help and are serious about improving your website performance and want to identify opportunities to outperform you competitors this is a great next step.