5 Ways To Improve Your Website Today
When I work with clients who are just starting to create their digital footprints and expand their businesses, I normally hear things like, “Most of my business is done on Instagram, so I don’t really pay attention to my website.” Or even, “We created the website super fast so it’s really just a one-page shell for customers to know we exist.”
I cringe every time.
As a business owner, you have to think about your website as the hub of your brand reputation. If it’s non-existent, so is your brand to any potential customers. If it is older than your dream clients, you have some work to do.
Imagine walking down a bustling city street with hundreds of people blocking your way because they stopped to check out a window display or are taking a photo of a storefront they want to share with their friends and family. As you walk down the street, there’s one area that has absolutely no one around it. It’s an empty store with nothing to offer that appears to be closed or no longer open for business.
That dull, empty store is your current website. Those bright and inviting other storefronts, bustling with customers? That’s your competition.
Which one do you want to be?
The good news is that there are a bunch of small things you can do right now to improve the appearance, functionality, and visibility of your website. Here are my top 5 recommendations:
Add CTA’s across each page, but do it strategically.
CTAs (call to actions) are the buttons that prompt your audience to take an action. Each page of your website should have specific CTAs that drive your potential customers to do something. For example, if you want a user to complete a form in order to get in touch with you, you’ll want to include CTA’s like “Get Started Now” or “Fill Out The Form.” If you want someone to purchase something, add CTAs like “Shop Now” or “Click Here To Purchase” to keep them focused and help them continue on their purchasing journey.
The 6 ways CTAs benefit business and user experience, according to Sender.net:Increases revenue by 83 percent
Website and product enrollment surges by 35 percent
Smoother navigation to help visitors find company services and products
Creates a bond between your business, visitors, and their needs
Guides customers to their needs quicker
Increases website serviceability
Update SEO descriptions for each page.
If you wrote your own website copy or have access to the backend for updates (newsflash: even if someone has written your website for you, you should always have this!) head to the SEO (search engine optimization) section of each page. You’ll want to update the page description with a few clear and concise sentences that tell the user exactly what they can expect on each page. To get your wheels spinning, my homepage description reads something like this, “Meet Danielle Cruz - a copywriter and marketing strategist who works with small business owners to get their brands back in business. Explore her copywriting, branding, and website services today and see success tomorrow!”Let me give you some quick background on SEO. When you go to Google in your daily life, you enter some words into the search field in the hopes that Google will display a website that gives you the exact answer to your query. How Google does that is with SEO. Those same terms that you typed into the search bar are the same terms that brands will use on the backends of their websites to ensure Google shows their business links to you - your ideal customer. That’s what you want to try to do when you update with SEO descriptions. Think about the things that your customers will search for when it comes to your industry and create copy with those same terms in order to give yourself the best chance to be seen in a search.
According to Medium.com’s “SEO Meta Description Statistics”, “Well-crafted meta descriptions may increase CTR by 30%.” Sounds like you should take a look, huh?
Add images and videos to your website.
As a copywriter, I can firmly tell you that too much copy on a page can hurt you. You have to find a way to balance all of those words with eye-catching and on-brand images or videos that support it. According to HubSpot, videos and images are two of the top 6 media formats that have the highest ROIs. Hire a photographer to take photos of you and your team in action or grab your iPhone and start snapping new images around the office now. You can also use free image sites, but pay attention to how you need to credit the original photographer!Add a booking integration to your website.
If you are a service-based business that does not offer a booking integration like an appointment scheduler or reservation calendar, we have to talk. Nowadays, people simply do not like calling to schedule an appointment. In fact, most consumers only want to speak with someone over the phone if they have a customer service issue. Make getting in touch with you super simple and use an integration like Calendly for your website.Add bullet points to your offer.
It’s not enough for you to just sell a really interesting product or offer a super enticing service. You need to spell out exactly what your clients or customers are going to get when they purchase from you. Let’s use a service-based business, like a coaching program, for example.
If I offer a coaching program for $1499, I can’t let my website - and all of the pages that make it up - be the only thing that sells it. I have to include what my client is going to receive once they purchase my program. So I’d want to write it this way —
HERE’S WHAT YOU GET
- A 25-page digital workbook
- Three 1:1 Zoom calls to answer your questions
- A 1-hour discovery call to learn more about your needs
- Access to all of my online courses
$1499
[BUY NOW BUTTON]
Talk about high value! Just updating your website with those small changes alone can be business-changing. When you need more guidance or need someone to jump right in and do this for you, get in touch with me today!
Questions? Comments? Wins? Leave them all below!
