Here are 8 ways you can get more out of your website and make it work harder in 2020:

1. It’s all about the “Call to Action”
A call to action (CTA) is a prompt that tells the user to do a specific action such as sign up to newsletter, call or subscribe to content. It’s important to make sure you have a strong, well placed call to action in order to have a good conversion rate. Placement, colour and the design of the CTA are all important points to consider.

2. Create landing pages
A landing page is designed to convert visitors into leads. It’s different from the rest of your website pages because it will have a form that allows you to gain visitor information in exchange for a certain offer or promise.

3. Create more content to ensure customers return
If you neglect to update your content or blogs your customers will soon lose interest. Keeping content up-to-date and relevant and it will give users a reason to come back to your website.

4. Rethink your landing page If you find your landing page isn’t working well for you then look at how you can change it to make it more engaging. Better still come up with several designs or versions, test them all, and see which landing page performs better.

5. Reviews
Reviews are so important to the success of your business, they create brand loyalty and build consumer confidence. Be sure to ask new customers for reviews, contact previous customers, display more reviews and make it easier to find reviews on your website.

6. Get a fresh design
This doesn’t have to be a brand new website, most are template based but speak to your designer about a fresh new look for 2020. Don’t forget to keep up with the maintenance of your website as well, it’s no good making it look amazing if the content isn’t fresh!

7. Get secure
Make sure your website is secure with https, it adds an extra layer of security which is especially important when dealing with sensitive data on your website such as contact forms or purchases. Google puts up a warning (an unlock symbol) when a person navigates to a non secure site which can have a negative impact resulting in loss of traffic and sales etc.

​8. Measure changes with Google Analytics It’s so important to keep track of what is working well (and what is not) and Google Analytics is a great free tool that gives you in depth information about your website and its content and how well it is performing for you.
 
So how is your website looking? Is it going to perform as well as you want it to in 2020?

Why do I need a website?
Think about why you want a website (not just because everyone else has one) and then think about what you want to achieve from it. Everyone wants to sell products or services and inform their customer and attract new ones, but other than these reasons why do you want a website?

The answer to this question will inform all your choices about how to develop your website. Always refer back to this when making every decision, having your target audience in mind.

An example
I would like a website to be able to display my finished designs and it needs to let people sign-up for my newsletter.

Q: What colour should my website be?
A: Who is my target audience and how can I appeal to them through my choice in colour?

A good plan to a website that succeeds is broken down into four parts:

1. Website Research
2. Website Build
3. Planning
4. Marketing

1. Website research

• Your target audience
• Your competitors
• Search engine marketing (SEO)

Before you start any business or even begin to think about your website, take a look at your target audience, your competitors and this is the time to be thinking about your search engine optimisation. Any keywords relevant to your industry and service should feature in the written content of your website.

2. Website build

• Navigation
• Content
• Structure (map/tree)

The website structure form the outline build of your website, this includes your navigation (how many pages to feature on your website). A tree or spider diagram can be drawn up to map out all the pages on your website. Your website content needs to be identified, from text to images and other media such as video.

3. Planning

• Design
• Functionality
• Specific requirements

People often make the mistake of starting with the design and shifting the content around to match. A better way is to collate all your content, develop the structure then think about the design when you know of everything that needs to be included. Functionality is anything that has a function for example email newsletter sign-up or a contact form. Specific requirements covers anything that isn’t strictly off-the-shelf e.g. a message board or a booking facility.

4. Marketing

• Publish
• Promote
• Measure your success

You publish your website and promote it through networking, word of mouth, on your business card, you direct people to it through emails but how do you know what content people are looking at and where they are spending their time? We install Google Analytics on every website we build, it is a FREE tool from Google and helps you find out much more than you will ever need to know!

Have you found any useful tools that could help others, plan, organise or build their website? Share your finds here:

We all know how fast the technological world moves, there’s always a new gadget/ phone/ must have gizmo on the horizon and it almost makes your head spin trying to keep up with it all. But it’s important to remember to ensure your website can cope with these changes.

Your website needs to be accessible on all the devices, especially mobile phones. Our mobile phones are no longer just for making calls and are now an important asset for our everyday lives.

This doesn’t have to be a big headache for you, although if you don’t keep up with your website maintenance it can get more tricky! Here are some top tips to help make sure your website is mobile friendly:

1. Check how Google views your website Use this Google Mobile Friendly Test page to see if your web page is mobile friendly.
2. Don’t build a second website specifically for mobile Google does not like duplicate content so a second website with the same content could affect your Google ranking.
3. Test your website on all market-leading phones or tablets don’t assume that because your site works fine on your iPhone that it also works on an android too.
4. Make sure all the important content is above the fold. This is where first impressions count. You want to make sure your visitors see full images and get the whole message or they might not read on.
5. Make sure text is readable. Users don’t want to have to zoom in to read the content on your site. Consider a larger font size if the content is difficult to read on mobile devices.
6. Use high resolution images If you want your website to look professional the last thing you need is for the images to appear blurry or pixelated when viewed on a high resolution device.
7. Responsive Web Design is where your website is designed in a way that allows you to change the layout so it will automatically adapt to a mobile device. This means it won’t matter what device your website is viewed on as it will always adjust to the correct resolution and size.

What steps have you taken to ensure your website is working well on all mobile devices?

1. Know Why You Need a Website
It sounds like a ridiculous question but if you know the real reason why you need a website (other than… well its just silly not to have one these days!), this will help you get the most out of your online presence. You will find it easier to focus your attention and get the right website functionality for your business needs.

2. Portal to Drive Traffic
Your website or blog is your main portal for sharing information to social media not the other way around! In most marketing, the main aim is to drive traffic to your website where potential customers can find out what you do and how to buy your products and services. How you keep them there and get them to purchase it the next step…

3. Building & Maintaining Your Online Brand
Does everything you publish online reflect your current brand? Check now… is your logo consistent, does your social media match your website brand, does your email signature match your website design? When you see something out of place on someone else’s website what does this make you think? If you see a strange comment on someone’s business social media post, does it change your perception of that company?

4. Mobile Friendly or Responsive
A good website is one that is mobile friendly or has a responsive design (RWD). A mobile friendly or responsive website is one where the design fits the device you are viewing it on (you don’t have to zoom in and the navigation buttons are easy to click on).

5. Measure Your Success
There are many tools out there for measuring the success of your marketing from Facebook insights, Hootsuite Analytics to Google Analytics. If you put content out there it is good practice to measure your success, so you know you are delivering the right content at the right time.