When thinking about creating a website or upgrading your website there a few things to remember. One of the most important is the user experience. Are your users staying on your site and engaging with your site or is it too difficult to maneuver? Two other factors to consider are whether you are choosing the right platform (Content Management System) for what your goals and needs are and focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) from the start, so you set your website up for success.
Let’s take a quick look into what to pay attention to in all 3 factors.
User Experience
- Make your site easy to navigate and use
Customers shouldn’t have to try and figure your site out. If they can’t find what they are looking for quickly, they will leave faster than they came. Keep your contact information easy to find and make it easy for them to skim your site to find information. - Make it fast
If your site takes more than 3 seconds to load you will lose almost every visitor. One way to speed up your site is by optimizing your videos and images. We live in a fast-paced world with impatient individuals that want and expect everything immediately when they want it. If your site takes long to load, your visitors will be gone and visiting your competitor’s site. - Make it informative
Content is still king. Give your visitors a reason to stay on your site. When I say this, I am not referring to just filling it with a ton of content. Keep it short but informative and have a section that gives more details and relevant information, such as a blog.
Choosing the right platform
- Plan for growth
Think about where you want to go. What are your goals? Will the platform you choose be able to grow with you? Some CMS’s are only meant for 1-page landing pages or up to 10 items for eCommerce, make sure the one you choose can grow as you grow or easily convert to another template for growth. There are CMS’s that are meant to help you start out small and grow from there - Should it be custom
Not all businesses should use a template even if it can grow with you. Talk with a professional and make sure you are choosing the right website design and development for your business model and goals. There are different customized website options depending on budgets, so don’t rule this option out thinking it will be too expensive. Make the right decision from the beginning rather than spending more money in the long run and set yourself back. - User experience
As mentioned above, the user experience is very important in the success of your website. Choosing the correct platform to help with your user’s experience is essential.
Search Engine Optimation (SEO)
- Think long term
SEO is not a quick process. There are things that can be done immediately but to keep the high ranking you should constantly focus on an SEO strategy. Focus on long term goals and the long-term plan, you will have much better success that way. - Focus on good content
This was mentioned a little bit in user experience. Good valuable content that is always being added to your site shows that your site is the place to go for your expertise. Search Engines are always crawling sites to see who is putting out good content, new content, valuable content, so update your blogs on a regular basis with valuable information. - Speed of website
As search engines are crawling your site, they are also checking how fast your site loads. They don’t just check your home page but the pages within your site. If your home page loads quickly but you fill your subpages with videos and images that aren’t optimized, search engines will ding your ranking.
There are many factors to take in consideration when designing and developing a website. If you need assistance, please let us know and we or one of our partners can get you the answers you need to make your website work for you and not against you.
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