SALES: 800.455.8932
Newsletter
Get updates on news and deals
Jan 05, 2012
5 things to improve your website in 2012
It is that time of year, where businesses are evaluating last year and looking for ways to improve this year. We have put together a list of five simple things you can do to improve your website without breaking the bank. Some of these items have been discussed before, but this is year you must take action.
- Make it easy to be contacted. Make your contact page and information readily available form every page on your website. Hiding your contact information or having the consumer hunt down the information often leads to distrust and uncertainty resulting in a lost prospect and sale. Ideally the phone number should always be near the top and bottom of every page. In addition, the phone number should be clickable for using your website on a mobile device.
- Format your text. The reality of today is people do not read large blocks of text, instead they scan and skim though text, so make it easy for your readers. Break the text into smaller chunks, use bulleted or number lists, use bolded text (don't go overboard with bolding), use heading text (short phase about the content below) to entice the reader to keep reading. Quotes are also a great way to break up text.
- Remove the sound that plays automatically. Playing sound automatically when a visitor enters your website will cause most users to leave immediately. Not only it is annoying, remember that many users are using their work computers to use the internet, and even if the message is great, it will never get seen as users will quickly hit the back button or close their browser.
- Get rid of those old small photos. Photos should large and visually appealing. Many websites are using photos on their site that were taken with a non-digital camera and were scanned into their computer. These photos looked faded, dirty, or scratched and generally are not high quality. Digital cameras are fairly in-expensive today and are easy to use. Spend an afternoon and take some new photos for your website. Another popular and great option is to purchase stock photography. These photos are often times great quality and taken by a professional. Stock photographers can be purchased for as little as three dollars per photo and can quickly improve the look of your website.
- Invest in a mobile website. More and more users are using mobile devices to access the internet and find products and services. While your traditional desktop websites may "work and look fine" on a mobile device, in 2012, that will not be enough to win business, It must be easy to navigate and contact you. For a small investment (a few hundred dollars and up), your business can make your website easy to use on a mobile device and lead to more inquiries and sales.