From a business perspective, having an efficient online presence is one of the most important things you can do to ensure company growth.
A reliable website is one of the best ways to prove your company’s credibility. A consumer can spend a while doing the research before putting trust within a company, so having a website that instantly presents itself well is an effective way of standing out from competitors. What does your company do better than others? A great online presence is a reliable way to prove your brand and prove your business is the best choice.
As your website is more often than not the first port of call when someone is researching a business, it is essential that your website shows the best of the company in a concise and clear manner. This article will outline the best ways to optimise your website.
Layout And Design
The layout is the first thing someone sees once they have clicked on a website, so if it does not look clean or organised, it is likely someone will click off straight away. This clicking off a website can be referred to as a bounce rate, the rate at which a consumer will leave a website after landing on the page. Do they click off after one page or do they browse first and then click away? The aim for a business is to have a low bounce rate; ie consumers stay and browse your website for a while instead of leaving after the first page. Recognising the effect your websites’ layout and design can have on bounce rates and the subsequent boost it can give your company is an important business tool. You can learn more about bounce rates here.
Internal Backlinks
An essential for a good website is one that is navigated easily. One way to help with navigation is internal backlinks. Internal backlinks essentially link one bit of your website to another, so it is easy to find; it is a quicker and easier way to direct a consumer to the right information. They are useful for a company as it keeps the consumer on their website instead of being directed elsewhere. Companies also benefit from using internal links as it helps with SEO (search engine optimisation), meaning search engines can use the internal links to determine if the website may be relevant to something a person is searching for.
Speed And Efficiency
Due to the growth of the internet, we now have access to fast information at the click of a button. While we used to be okay with waiting a few minutes for a page to load, high-speed internet is now accessible to most, so consumers demand information fast. This means a website needs to be able to load within seconds or it is likely to not be viewed at all. As a business, having a website that can perform quickly is crucial in keeping potential customers interested in your company; it looks professional and can stop someone from clicking off your website and on to a competitor. Ensuring your website has consistent and proper maintenance is a sure way to promote your business and optimise the companies growth.
Mobile Friendly
When starting to think about building a company website, you must think of how to make it the most accessible to the most about of people. A big part of this includes making the website mobile friendly as people like the convenience of viewing a website via their phone as opposed to opening their laptop or computer. Research has shown that as high as 74% of people are more likely to return to a website if they consider it mobile-friendly. Not only is this appealing to the consumer, but search engines also look for mobile-friendliness when it comes to how the business will be ranked on a results page. So a more mobile-friendly website has a better chance of getting your company to the top of the results and therefore gaining a higher volume of traffic and more potential customers.
Quality Content
All the above points are important in optimising your online presence, but another crucial aspect is ensuring the content provided on the website is to a high standard. Your website may look nice and load fast, but if the information supplied is also not of high quality, then you can lose traffic. Style of content on websites can vary depending on branding, but it should always read well and inform the consumer in a creative and efficient way.
Websites are essential for any modern business; it is unlikely a company can successfully function in today’s society without an online presence. However, just having an online presence isn’t enough; it needs to be used as an effective business tool to show who you are as a company and excel above competitors. Following the above tips can be helpful in doing so.