Is It Time to Update Your Website?

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There are a lot of factors that determine the quality of your website and if you’re questioning the quality of yours, keep reading. If you don’t have a website, you have permission to skip all the way to the last paragraph.

We all know how important the internet is to running a business these days. Whether you’re using social media to interact with customers or using a website to drive sales, there’s a strong chance you spend a lot of time running your business online. However, just because you have a website, doesn’t mean it’s as effective as it could be. To help you out, we’ve compiled this list of factors that affect the impact of your website:

How it looks.

Did you know 59 percent of consumers would rather engage with well-designed content? That means if your small business website design isn’t up to par, you can have a major problem. Cluttered layouts and hard-to-read text can cause you to lose a lot of potential customers. You have less than a second to capture a customer’s attention and if the design of your website falls short, you will lose them. Obviously, design appeal is subjective, but consumers recognize good and bad design when it comes to layout and visual content. Just like clothing, design trends change, but keeping up with layout and user experience trends can make a huge difference on your website.

What it says.

Your small business website design keeps them on your website, but the story you tell sells your product. The visual and written content on your website should tell your story and be up-to-date with what you do. It should be informative and engaging while encouraging people to use your business’ services with calls to action. Content is also necessary for search engine optimization.

SEO.

Search engine optimization affects the visibility of your site on search engines like Google and Bing without having to pay. For successful SEO, your website content should include popular key phrases that people use to search for similar goods and services. For instance, if you’re a local florist, you want to make sure your SEO targets key phrases related to “local florists.” Effective SEO can increase traffic to your business’ website because they are seeing it first or second on their list of options.

Speed.

We live in a time of instant gratification. When scrolling the internet, you expect things to load quickly. Forty percent of people will abandon your site if it takes more than three seconds to load. Hosting server issues, layout, image sizes and other factors can affect the speed of your website. How efficiently your website runs can reflect how effective your business really is.

Responsiveness.

It’s essential that you meet your audience where they are. Two-thirds of people access the web from a mobile device, which means your website needs to have a layout and design that can respond to all different screen sizes. Just because it looks good on a laptop doesn’t mean it will translate well on a cellphone or tablet.

Access.

As your business grows, the content on your website should as well. If your website development platform is hard to access and update on your own, it’s time to switch. It is important that you keep your website up-to-date with all the things you’re doing and leave room for growth if you add products, services or even locations.

If you’re in need of a fresh website, Rooted Web is here to help. We offer a variety of small business website design and development services that can help you stay on top of your digital ecosystem. As web experts, we know the ins and outs of design, SEO trends and content production. If you want your small business to grow and flourish in today’s online world, connect with us today to see how our services can help you.