1. Is your website modern and visually appealing?
While the visual design of a website is not the only factor in determining its effectiveness, it is an important part. If your website looks dated or amateurish, then your business may look out of touch or amateurish.
Given that much of early customer engagement with a business occurs online, this is not a good first impression and you may lose customers to a better looking competitor.
Quick Tip: Use high-quality positive imagery to catch your site visitor’s eye and build positive associations with your website and brand.
2. Does your website work well on mobile devices?
Mobile has become increasingly important. With more and more people visiting your website from handheld devices like the iPhone and the iPad, having a website that provides a user-friendly mobile experience is important.
Google now uses mobile friendliness as a factor in ranking your website in their search results. That is, if your site is not mobile responsive, Google will likely penalise you by showing other websites that are mobile friendly higher in its search results.
Quick Tip: Ensure your phone number is not displayed as an image on your website. Phone numbers contained in images cannot be directly dialled on mobile phones making your website less user-friendly.
3. Is your website older than 4 years?
Web development technology has come a long way in the last 4 years. Certain features that were heavily used ‘back in the day’ no longer work on iPhones and iPad.
Flash was used frequently on websites to provide nice animations and interactivity. Flash, however, is not supported by iPhone or iPads. This means your beautifully animated and interactive flash based website or website components simply show up blank on the iPhone & iPad.
Quick Tip: Access your website on an iPhone to see if all the animated and interactive aspects of your websites work well.
4. Is it easy to add pages, news, articles, photos etc. on your website?
One of the major developments in web development has been the commercialisation of content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress, Drupal and Joomla. A CMS provides a user friendly admin area for you to manage the pages, articles, images etc. on your website.
This means you do not have to pay a web developer hundreds of dollars every time you want to add a new page, articles, news update etc.
5. Does your website have useful and organised information for your visitors?
Is your website merely a brochure on the web or is it more an eBook full of useful information. This should include clear articulation of the services you offer, your point of difference, non-pitchy articles to demonstrate thought leadership or knowledge in your relevant industry.
If relevant, your website should also feature video content. Be it general branding or to demonstrate specific products or maybe even client testimonials – video content rates well both with human visitors and Google and can help you rank higher in search engine results.
Quick Tip: Add an Articles / News & Events page to your website where you regularly publish useful industry specific information.
Next Steps
The above are just few of the many factors that go into building a successful website. Other aspects include lead capture, social media integration, e-commerce functionality etc.
If you are interested in learning how your website could be your 24 hour salesperson, get in touch for an obligation free consultation today. We will review your current website and provide ideas on how to make it better in engaging, nurturing and winning customers.
