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Mar 18 2020

Top Ten Tips for Improving Your Website Today – Part Two

Last month, I shared five of my Top Ten Tips for improving your website. This week I will share five more plus a bonus tip. My hope is that you implement any one or two of these tips within the next 14 days and in doing so, help your business grow and succeed.

 

Tip #6 – The first thing that 50% of referred website visitors pay attention to is the site menu.

Your navigational menu must do a great job of helping new visitors orient themselves. A cumbersome navigational menu can be highly frustrating and cause visitors to leave. Make sure your navigation bar is clear, direct, minimal and easy to use. Many sites use horizontal navigation bars but vertical navigation bars and hamburger menus are becoming more and more popular. Check out your navigation bar today – are there ways to improve it for user-friendliness?

 

Tip #7 – On a daily basis, 2.9 billion Google searches are executed.

If you want to be found amongst all the other sites, SEO must be one of the primary concerns when creating content and building your website. Keyword research is…well, key…to figuring out what phrases people are searching for in your niche. With so many daily searches, the traffic potential is huge. At the same time, though, your content should not be based purely on keywords, it must be relevant, educational and informative.

 

Tip #8 – Demographics plays a huge role in user behavior.

One-size-fits-all websites will end up providing a non-optimized experience for a majority of your users. You must study your visitor demographics and create a website that they will respond to positively. One of the first and most critical steps in building a successful website is creating a customer avatar. There are many critical insights to be gained from creating a customer avatar and the benefits are endless. They include building a website that attracts and wins over your clients as well as gearing all your digital marketing strategies towards the right audience, thereby saving time, money and energy!

 

Tip #9 – Only 0.5 seconds is required to form an opinion.

It only takes a moment to make a first impression and first impressions matter! Especially, when there is so much competition out there and clicking “X” on a website is so easy to do. Websites need to load quickly, especially on mobile devices. Once the website has loaded, the average user will take half a second to make a judgment on your company. Therefore, you must make an excellent first impression! The use of images, background theme, color, content and layout must be in line with the expectations of your average user to quickly grab their attention and their interest!

 

Tip #10 – Call to action buttons are missing on 70% of homepages!

You can get an advantage over your competition by using CTA’s on your homepage and throughout your site. It will increase your user’s conversion rate and reduce the hesitation of pulling the trigger on a purchase or action such as setting up a consultation call. Some CTA’s include “Sign Up Now, Get Started, Learn More, Join Now” and many more!

 

BONUS Tip #11 – Research shows that off-white text fields lead to higher conversion.

Almost all websites these days have a form for customers to fill in with their name and email. Forms are used to share contact information, sign up for newsletter subscriptions, or receive offers or specials. Research shows that when the fields in your form are white, there are less people who actually type their information into the fields. Forms that are off-white are more successful at capturing potential client data. This is such a small and easy change to implement and can have a huge impact on your business.

Well ladies, there you have it. My current top ten tips for improving your website. We work hard on our websites so it’s critical our websites work for us! Again, don’t just read this article. Learn from it and please choose at least two tips from this list to implement on your website sometime in the next 14 days. Any of these tips will help you and your business achieve more success even if you’re already successful or at the pre-revenue stage.

If you are interested in a site audit, speed test or need any other kind of web design or development help, feel free to reach out through my website or via email at aimee@cleanforest.co. As Canadian Small Business Women, we must support each other. Message me today to set up your free consultation and learn how to best optimize your site!

 

 

Aimee Eppel runs CleanForest Consulting, a web design and development agency based in Mississauga, Ontario. Along with a highly experienced team, she creates high quality and affordable web solutions for huge organizations such as MIT, Mount Sinai Hospital and BMO as well as local start ups such as hockey schools, law firms and home organizers. Aimee is a mother of two beautiful children, both still in diapers!

For any sort of web related help, please email her at aimee@cleanforest.co or through her website at https://cleanforest.co/.

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Written by Dwania Peele · Categorized: Aimee Eppel · Tagged: Aimee Appel, top 10 tips, top 10 tips for improving your website, website

Feb 18 2020

Top Ten Tips for Improving Your Website Today – Part One

Ladies, whether you’re currently an aspiring business owner, or a successful business owner, chances are you have a website to support your business. And if you have a website, chances are you have spent lots of time, energy and perhaps money to get that website looking and working well. I don’t mean to be harsh, but having a website that looks good and works well is simply not enough these days if you want to attract more clientele, get the edge over your competitors, enhance your brand image or increase your revenue.

My business is in web design and development and every week I come across hundreds of sites. Some are good…really good. Some are bad. And some are just plain ugly! I’m here to tell you that there are easy, fast and affordable ways to improve your website, thus improving your business no matter what stage you’re at.

The following 10  tips will help you take your website from drab to fab in no time at all. If you’re looking for ways to attract traffic to your site, impress potential customers with your digital presence and attract more leads and sales, please read on. But more importantly, choose one or two tips from this list and commit to implementing them on your website in the next 14 business days. Good luck ladies – you inspire me!

 

Tip #1 – Mobile devices make up two thirds of web usage!

Over 60% of people visiting your site are doing so through their mobile device. Make sure your website is optimized for mobile usage. What does that mean?

  1. Your site needs to be responsive
  2. Site text and images must fit on the page
  3. Your mobile site must load super quickly
  4. The navigation bar is super clear and framed well in the screen
  5. Your pop-ups are optimized for mobile devices

 

Tip #2 – You have 8 seconds to make a first impression on an average visitor to your website!

Your potential customer must be able to find the information they’re looking for in just 8 seconds or say bye-bye! Don’t forget, the website has to be attractive and user-friendly to ensure the potential customer has a positive user experience and thus a positive impression of you and your company!

 

Tip #3 – 73% of visitors are heavily influenced by video!

Many potential customers would rather engage with a short, informational video instead of text where possible. There are tons of affordable tools which will assist you in making a professional video explaining your services, showcasing happy customer testimonials or giving a high overview of your company. So try to find a way to use video to help persuade potential customers on the merits of your products or services.

 

Tip #4 – 7 out of 10 consumers find a company via the blog!

A blog is a great way to attract new customers in an organic way. Make sure your blog content is informative and engaging. A blog establishes you as an expert in your field and will help you to gain trust and credibility with your audience. Even one new piece of content a week is enough to build a healthy collection of information over a short period of time.

 

Tip #5 – Lists are better than large paragraphs!

Website experts know that a text-heavy page used to be great for SEO, but too much text is counter-productive for actual human readers. Google algorithms no longer favor text heavy websites and keyword stuffing is a huge no-no! Think of the layout in a newspaper; long, thin columns of text is much more accessible than massive chunks of text. Even better, try using lists, bolding, and descriptive headers to make the text easier to skim.

Ladies, Part Two of this article will be released next month. In the meantime, please choose one or two of these tips and commit to implementing them in the next 14 days. Even a small change could have a huge impact.

if you are interested in a site audit, speed test or need any other kind of web design or development help, feel free to reach out through my website at https://cleanforest.co/  or via email at aimee@cleanforest.co. As Canadian Small Business Women, we do well by lifting each other up and supporting each other learn and grow. Message me today to set up your free consultation and learn how to best optimize your site!

 

 

Aimee Eppel runs CleanForest Consulting, a web design and development agency based in Mississauga, Ontario. Along with a highly experienced team, she creates high quality and affordable web solutions for huge organizations such as MIT, Mount Sinai Hospital and BMO as well as local start ups such as hockey schools, law firms and home organizers. Aimee is a mother of two beautiful children, both still in diapers!

For any sort of web related help, please email her at aimee@cleanforest.co or through her website at https://cleanforest.co/.

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Written by Dwania Peele · Categorized: Aimee Eppel · Tagged: Aimee Eppel, consulting, top 10 tips, top 10 tips for improving your website

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