Your website’s success isn’t necessarily something you can quantify by looking at other sites. Instead, it’s highly subjective. What might make a great website for one business may not work for all businesses, and it all may depend on the end user. For instance, if you’re seeking to reach millennials and parents through your website, be sure the content and navigation best suits them.
But, regardless of your goals and objectives, there are a few things you can do to keep your site in its prime.
On The Back End
There are many components of a website that people don’t see. And, these are perhaps the most important to the user experience, which we will discuss a bit more below. To ensure that your digital assets are most valuable to you, you should work with your developer to confirm that your Customer Relationship Management software integrates with your other programs. And, if you use an Enterprise Resource Planning platform, consider connecting your site to it as well. According to Oracle, ERP systems eliminate the need for multiple spreadsheets and data sources, which can enhance productivity and effectiveness.
Your website must also be optimized so that it can be found in searches. This involves a combination of small business technology such as location-based tech, search engine optimization, and the utilization of mobile design. Search Engine Journal explains further that an optimized website reads and understands user intent and is linked back and forth with other reputable websites.
User Experience
Because the growth of your business is likely highly dependent on your web presence, your website must cater to users. In addition to handling back-end tasks, such as those listed above, your site must have plenty of front-facing features that keep users engaged. These include:
- An appealing and clean design. Your website’s design will capture attention or turn it away. Make sure that your site delivers your brand to your customers by maintaining consistency across this and other digital platforms. This includes using an eye-catching, professional-looking logo that’s distinctive in its design and messaging. Creating a logo that’s instantly recognizable to users across platforms is made easy with tools like Adobe’s custom logo maker, which allows you to draw from a deep well of templates to customize your own.
With the logo and the website, use easy to read font and color combinations. Also avoid adding features to your website, such as pop-ups, that customers might find intrusive.
- Easy to navigate. For the best user engagement, your website should be easily navigable. Smashing Magazine showcases several websites that have aesthetics down but are essentially unusable because they prioritized beauty over the user experience. Your site should have a clear navigation panel and a site map.
- Quick to load. If your website fails to load after just two seconds, you will likely lose the business of the person trying to access it. A lagging connection can happen because of everything from bandwidth throttling and network congestion to content filtering and just plain bad design.
- Has strong CTAs. A CTA, or call to action, is essentially an explicit instruction that tells your website users to take an action. An example might be a newsletter sign up, share button, or option to access additional pages with one click. Your CTAs should be clear, easy to spot, and link to live pages.
- Makes contact easy. If you want your business to grow, your customers need to be able to contact you easily. Your contact page should be clearly marked, have only the information users need to contact the right person, and offer multiple means of communication.
Ultimately, the success of your website equates to the success of your business. You want to ensure that your online presence is second to none. This starts by prioritizing your website function internally and also includes making sure that your site is easy for your customers to navigate. Everything you do on the front and back end matters, so make sure to partner with a web designer that understands each and can deliver a site that you’re proud to call your own.
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