23 Jul The Importance of a Professionally Designed Website
Whenever we receive interest in our digital marketing services like our SEO services, Google Ads and social media marketing, we first take a look at the potential client’s website. More often than not, we end up giving suggestions of how their websites can be improved. Whether they use us for the job is entirely up to them, but SOMS prides itself on integrity, and while we know that we can get hundreds and thousands of people on your website, it means absolutely nothing if those visits aren’t converting to actual leads and eventual customers.
A little-known fact is that often, the success of your digital marketing strategy relies on your website, as this serves as a non-invasive sales-pitch to your target audience. While some agencies may be okay with signing clients just for the sake of it, we want to ensure your success, and so highlight the importance of a professional website.
A lot of business owners make the mistake of thinking that they ONLY need to get a website up and running and that with the help of a digital marketing strategy, they’re on their way to the top. Sadly, it doesn’t necessarily work like that. In fact, if we consider that all forms of digital marketing lead back to your website, you start to realise the impact your website can have on the success of your strategy.
It’s important to remember that the internet is making consumers more knowledgeable when considering their buying habits and these days, it’s very common for a potential customer to do research before purchasing. In fact, they are very likely comparing you to your leading competitors with the hope of finding the best deal from a business that offers responsive customer service and quality products.
So, what do we look for when checking your website?
Mobile-Responsive
These days, more than half of all Google Searches come from mobile devices which means that a large portion of your website traffic is looking up your product or services via their smartphone or tablet. Consider how frustrating it is when you’re searching for something on your phone, only for the website not to load properly or work well on your phone. It can immediately put you off the brand and have you clicking away to find their competitor. In addition, since April 2015, Google officially started rewarding the search rank of mobile-friendly sites and penalising sites that were not mobile-friendly, which means that your website’s responsiveness will impact how your website ranks organically on Google.
Overall Aesthetic
As much as we hate to admit it, a professional, sleek and well-designed website will always garner better results than one that you’ve tried to put together in an hour. Time is money and, in an age where everything is instant, the quickest way to lose someone’s attention is to present your “sales-pitch” in a bad format. So keep in mind that the overall look and feel of your website is what serves as a hook to your target market; it needs to encourage them to engage with the website. Consider using graphics, good-quality images, different text formats and a well-thought-out branding and messaging that will carry through to your marketing strategy.
Content is King
Once your website looks great, it’s important to focus attention on the actual content and messaging that you’re presenting to potential clients. When considering what content goes on your website, you have to think as if you’ve never encountered your brand before and present answers to what may seem like obvious questions; you have to tell your brand story, sell your product and/or service and tell customers how or where they can book or buy from you, while also answering FAQs that pop up from time to time. A quick SEO tip is to be mindful to include your keywords when writing content and make sure you don’t make the mistake of copying content from another website as Google will penalise you for duplicating content.
Social Media Links
A quick way of checking for deals, discounts and promotions is by checking a company’s social media pages. Make sure your website has links to take website visitors directly to your social pages so that you can grow your audience across all platforms while also giving potential clients another reason to trust your brand.
Testimonials
Nothing sells a customer on your service like testimonials. These days, it’s best to have reviews on social media and Google My Business because these are linked to real accounts, but it doesn’t hurt to feature a handful of the best testimonials on your website too.
Basic SEO Check
The last thing we check on a website is whether your website, at it’s very least, has a Favicon and Page Title. Of course, this isn’t an indication of your site being correctly SEO’ed and we can perform a comprehensive SEO audit for you which will analyse your SEO strategy in more detail, but it’s one of the first things you should have set-up on your site after launching it.
Need a Company in Digital Marketing? We can dig deeper and give you some more pointers on what we’d look for, or you could just call us and we’ll be able to guide you on improving your website and digital strategy.