What was once a luxury is now considered a basic business necessity by many business owners. Even home office workers are becoming ‘Virtual Assistants’ with a website as their online office. It doesn’t matter whether we’re looking for solicitors, painters or a cheap deal on a fridge, most of us research our options online before we walk through the front door of a business. So why do we paint the shop and sign-write the van but let our own business websites go stale?
For many business owners, the idea of creating a website is a big investment in time and this puts us off the idea of doing it too often. Sadly if you treat your website as a tick box that you do once and walk away you are leaving an aging impression of your business online. Also with technology changing, you may find your website just isn’t working for the people knocking on your website’s front door. It’s time to go to website boot camp.
This is why having a good relationship with your marketing advisor or web designer is important. Together you can regularly review your website to ensure it is technically up to date, that a virtual coat of paint keeps it looking as current as the rest of your business and it wouldn’t hurt for your content to be changed so there is always current stock or information available. If your website designer isn’t pushing you with suggestions then it’s like having a personal trainer that doesn’t care about your ongoing health and fitness. Let’s look at three areas your website might not be fighting fit if you haven’t updated it in the last two years.
Stale Content
The first area that can go stale is content. Our world has changed from looking up paper resources like Yellow Pages and Encyclopaedia Britannica to searching on Google and Wikipedia. Your goal is to get your business in front of these online customers. You’d agree with me that good service should be rewarded. People return to where they find good content and Google Search is now rewarding websites with better search results if they keep providing regular relevant content. Time for a website boot camp diet review.
Mobile Friendly
Secondly, many websites just aren’t mobile-friendly. Think for a moment how big your phone screen was on your last mobile phone. While the web was available on our phones it wasn’t as fast or usable as it is today. Your customers have stopped starting up their desktop computers to look up a website between TV ads. Instead, they pull out their mobile or tablet. With some websites reporting 25-35% of their website traffic coming from mobile devices have you reviewed your website to see if it’s usable for a mobile audience? Time for a website boot camp review of your BMI (body mass index).
The Social Question
Finally, as we grow our business we want to see the results multiplied on social media but we want to avoid the duplication of effort. Is your website designed so that your customers can share your products and content and amplify your message? Ask your web designer if they have set your website up to use the Open Graph protocol. This is vital when social sharing. If your customers try to share your content from a website without Open Graph they may find they’re not able to share the correct information or images to give your business the best impression.
If you create fresh content on your website and are connected to Social Media networks you will start to see viral ripples carry your brand. And if people are visiting your website whether on their desktop or mobile phone, make sure they think you look good because those first impressions do count. Think of your own experience when you find a poorly designed or visually depressing website and what it says to you about the business.
Take your website to Boot Camp today!
