5 Quick Fixes To Get A Professional Website
You come across a unique business and suddenly you want to know more, so you go to their website only to find that the website doesn’t match that pretty shiny business image you just saw? Either it took too long to load, the design wasn’t the best or the first link you clicked on led you right to an error page. What was your impression of the business after that? Meh, right?
Seems unfair that just that quick, based off of a single website visit a person’s whole image of a brand and how they perceive it going forward has forever changed. They become skeptical immediately. Well whether it is fair or not, customers will base their trust off of their website experience.
If a website isn't high quality, why would a customer believe your offer is? Share on X
Your website is the face of your business. You have to make a good first impression not just when they first visit your website, but during their entire visit on your website. You want to create a good experience for them. In order to do so, you have to start with a professional website.
One way that you can tell that things just don’t add up on your website is if you have high traffic with a high bounce rate or low conversion rates.
Here are 5 Quick Fixes To Get A Professional Website:
- Bad Design – What is bad design anyway? Bad web design falls into many categories. It could mean that the website is cluttered with unnecessary media like video or images. It could also mean that your website’s navigation is poor.
Suggestion: Hire a a good designer. A good designer knows the ins and outs of how to strategically layout your website so that it is appeasing and gives the user clarity on your brand’s message. They also know how to lead your client through the conversion process.
2. Out-dated Content – Content can get old very fast. Let’s say you wrote a really great blog post 3 years ago reviewing a product that was popular at that time. Today, that product is either no longer a hit or may not even be on the shelf anymore. While that blog post was a good one and you feel like it was the best content you put out that go a whole lot of views, today it is irrelevant and should be archived.
Suggestion: Do a content check twice per year to go through your content; decide what should stay or go or maybe go to the archives. Also it is a good time to maybe repurpose content by updating it especially if it was a good post that got good traffic and say the topic is very relevant to today. You would get a lead on traffic because your content is already in the search engines.
3. Bad Mobile Design – It used to be a time where this was not such a big deal, but now we are now in the digital age where you can’t ignore your online presence. Whatever you put out online better be in high quality and mobile friendly. You will look very unprofessional and fast. I can assure you that your website will be most likely viewed on some type of mobile device. Whatever people do on your website, they should be able to do on any mobile device.
Suggestion: Be sure you get a design that is already mobile friendly. Also go through your website with a fine-tooth comb from every type of mobile device; (phone, tablet, laptop). If it is something you can’t get right, hire a designer.
4. Broken Links – Something to keep in mind is that anytime a user visits your website and gets redirected to a 404 error page after clicking a link, they are not getting to the information they want and need to. This is very frustrating for them and it is also unprofessional on your behalf as a business. If you work on your website a lot and you post a lot, you are probably always making changes to posts and pages, so be sure that you are checking links to those posts and pages especially if you’ve shared them somewhere within your website.
Suggestion: Once per year, be sure that you go through all links on your website to be sure they lead to the right places. Also check external links, you never know when you may be linking to a website that has also made changes.
Saved the best most important for last…
5. No “https” – This is another one that didn’t matter until a couple of years ago. Having a website security certificate to ensure that your website is a secure one to be on. People are very serious about having their information compromised in any way these days. Plus, if you are an e-commerce business, you can no longer skip having an SSL certificate. It is required before you can setup your website as an e-commerce.
Suggestion: Buy an SSL Certificate from your hosting company. As of today, most hosting plans come with the certificate. If that is the case, be sure that it is installed correctly. The sure tell-tell sign if a website has one is their website’s url will begin with HTTPS instead of HTTP. The ‘S’ is for security/secure. Some website browsers will now block websites if they aren’t secure.
Listen, just because you have a website doesn’t mean that you can just assume that it is professional. It is very important to check your website often. This list is just the beginning of things to check off to be sure that your website is and stays professional. Having a professional website takes a lot of work and in order to gain the trust of new customers and keep old ones, your website must be professional from the time they arrive on your homepage to the time they leave your website. Rest easy in knowing that your website gives its users a good user experience.
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If you need a good designer, I am accepting new clients. Let’s chat! I am pretty friendly. 🙂
Remember, it’s all love. -LaShonda
