You've spent money and time creating a logo, letterhead, and brochures for your business. You care about your company message, and you want customers to know you care about quality. You've hired professional graphic artists, designers, and printers to do the job. But what about your website? Does it match the quality and look of your other marketing materials? Since the Web has more reach than the rest of your marketing materials, it should demonstrate the highest quality. Think about how many times you have thought of hiring someone and before you committed, you decided to Google them. Websites are an essential part of the buying process. And yet so many business owners have hired amateurs, relatives, teenagers, or created McWeb (fast setup, cookie-cutter) sites themselves. Your website is an extension of your business. It is not only your storefront, it is the first impression of the business. An important distinction about the Web is the amount of time you have to create interest for your visitor. You have only seconds to make a great impression. How are you using yours? Now is the perfect time to see if your small business Web site design needs some tweaking to make that great impression. Visit your own Web site and check out our three-step approach below to see if it's time for you to consider a change. 1. Before you click to review your Web site home page, ask yourself what your current business goals are. Do you want to sell a product? Do you want to sell services? Do you want to provide information for prospective buyers? What do you want to accomplish? Your goals and your business may have changed since you first put up your small business Web site. Deciding on your current business goals will help you to decide on the main focus for your small business Web site. 2. Discover what your firm's largest strengths are. This can be done through customer focus groups, surveys, interviews, or informal processes. The result should be something similar to your unique selling proposition or how customers benefit from doing business with you. 3. Now, visit the home page of your Web site. What is the first item that you see? Put one and two together, and shouldn't your Web site home page immediately feature your biggest strengths or a means to your goal (or preferably both?) The Web is filled with what not to do. When people visit your website, assume they have been researching solutions for a problem they have. Don't make the mistake of filling the home page with content that does not discuss benefits and solutions to common problems your customers face. Your visitors, need confirmation that they are in the right place and they need it fast. This brings me to one of the most important factors. 2021 has introduced a new ranking factor for Google's algorithm. It is called Web Core Vitals and part of it has to do with how fast your website loads on mobile devices. Even if you have your home page perfectly designed with content that speaks to your potentials customer assuring them you are the best choice and they lives are about to get a whole lot better, it will not matter if the page does not load fast. Google recommends that your website loads within 3 seconds. The logic behind this is based on studies that show if someone has to wait more than 3 seconds for a website to load on their mobile device, they move on. They assume the site is not working. Essentially they go back and go to the next link/business in their results. Increasing the load time of your website is something you need to hire a professional for. There could be many factors that slow a website down, but it needs to be addressed strategically. Keep your messaging clear and to the point, and make sure it loads fast. Trust that if they want to learn more about your company, they can click around your website and find out more.
