Nowadays, you can’t run a business without having a website. After all, people won’t bump into you on the street and find out that you’re selling the products that they need. Using traditional media such as newspaper ads and flyers won’t do you any good either. If your main aim is to grow and remain profitable, you need to focus on building a website that’s fully optimized for your audience.
However, not all websites end up providing the results that businesses need. As things go in the world of business, you will need to confront a few critical issues along the way that can affect your website’s performance and, worse, prevent it from realizing the goals you have set in the first place.
If you’re managing a website for your business, expect things to not go the way you plan it. There are several factors that will get in the way of achieving your online marketing goals and you will have to get ready for them.
After all, a business website is an investment. As such, you will have to improve it as much as you can. Here are a few things that should help you enhance your website’s performance.
1. Check out your key metrics
When it comes to improving your website’s overall performance, it’s important to know if there’s a need to improve it at all. On that note, you will have to focus on the key metrics you can track. These should provide information on how well your website is doing in terms of attracting and converting web traffic.
Sure enough, there are several tools for analyzing your website’s performance. Chief among them is Google Analytics. The platform provides a straightforward way of tracking the most important numbers to focus on. Google Analytics is also useful for helping you determine what specific modifications to consider for improving your website.
The secret here is to track the numbers that matter the most, namely:
Bounce rate
This allows you to determine the volume of one-page visits your website incurs. A high bounce rate would mean that your website is loading slowly or that the content you publish isn’t relevant to visitors.
New users
If you’re aiming to get as many qualified leads through your website as possible, you may want to focus on generating new users. These are basically people who haven’t visited your website before and have come across it while browsing.
Conversion rate
An e-commerce website is best gauged using a conversion rate. This basically shows you the volume of people who took a certain course of action (signing up to your mailing list or initiating a transaction, for example) on your website. To some, the conversion rate is used to measure a website’s effectiveness in selling.
Source/Medium
As you analyze the volume of visitors you receive each day, you will need to know where they are coming from. This specific metric helps you identify your top sources of web traffic, whether it’s Organic Search or Social Media.
Each metric can give you information that’s crucial to improving certain aspects of your website. For sure, you won’t be able to revise your current strategies without gathering and understanding the data you need for effective maintenance.
2. Set your benchmarks
After you have a good idea of how web analytics works, you will have to set up specific goals that should steer you towards the right direction.
In this case, setting benchmarks allows you to establish your priorities so you can allocate time and resources on specific components that give value to your business. That said, make sure to be realistic with your goals. For instance, it’s not always possible for businesses to secure a bounce rate of 20%. A more viable rate would be 40-60%, which is the average that many high-converting websites work with.
At any rate, you will need all the support you can get to fully optimize your website. For this, you may need to hire the experts you can rely on for realizing your goals through analytics.
3. Apply effective SEO
If you notice a sudden drop of new users entering your website, chances are it’s not visible through the search engine. Indeed, if you want to generate quality leads for your business, your website has to be highly searchable. In other words, it has to be optimized for search engines such as Google.
Search engine optimization can help you improve your website’s searchability by making improvements to your content and applying other strategies for increasing the website’s search ranking. Start by conducting keyword research. With tools such as Google’s Keyword Planner and Buzzsumo, you can generate a list of high-value keywords to include in the content you publish.
You may also opt for link-building strategies such as guest posting where you can build backlinks on authority sites. This allows you to “capture” visitors who are actively searching for your products or services.
4. Underscore security
If you’re running an e-commerce site that’s intended for converting leads into sales, you will need to improve your website’s security features by applying for an SSL certificate.
But apart from that, you also need to ensure your visitors that you comply with policies on data protection. Nothing turns a prospect off quite like a shady website that doesn’t have the required security protocols installed.
5. Improve your website’s design
Your website’s appearance is crucial to engaging your audience. A well-organized website that’s highly navigable and user-friendly will have a better chance at converting users into sales.
This is possible by simplifying the user interface and opt for web pages with design elements that align with your branding and marketing objectives.
A successful website is one that is well-maintained. And given that the digital landscape is always changing, businesses will have to make sure that their web presence remains stable.
Using these tips, you can maintain a website that lets you close more sales, educates your audience, and widens your online reach!