Ever think about your first digital marketing love? Many marketers will admit that their first love was their website. 1-grid CEO, Thomas Vollrath, says regular updates on your website will assist you in ranking organically and assure your customers have a seamless user experience. It is time to review your website and optimise it for your customers to fall in love with your online presence all over again.
Over the years, websites have evolved rapidly. From click me content, white space trends and infinite scrolling to minimalistic design. Websites have remained the housing space of a business’s culture and objectives. The newer digital marketing loves such as email and social media have proven popular however when using these tools, a call-to-action almost always re-directs you to a website.
Here are a few ways to optimise your website:
Device responsiveness
Have you checked your website’s responsiveness on various devices? Statista confirms that more than 20 million people in South Africa have access to Smartphones, so ensure that your site is adaptive to all devices by creating a responsive design with short meta-titles as this makes it easier for users to read on mobile.
Search engine optimisation (SEO)
Focus on trending keyword searches that you could use in blog writing to rank on the first page of Google. There are a number of free tools that you can use such as: Google Trends, Google Ads Keyword Planner, WordStream and Ubersuggest.
Content auditing
It is important to remain on-trend with your users. Understand your audience’s content preference by AB testing your content types. Different types of content to consider are: blogs, videos, infographics and customer stories. This content adds a personal touch to your brand and may be more appealing to your audience. How would you know if content is preferred? Fester stated, ‘you will notice an increase in traffic to your website. Additionally the average time spent on a page will increase’.
User experience
Navigating through your website should be a seamless process for your users. This is closely linked to the point above. If your website is unappealing and not user friendly you will find that your consumer behaviour will result in higher bounce rates, lower average time on page and page views.
This is where conversions tie in. If you see high traffic numbers and low conversions it is likely that users are unsatisfied, however this requires further investigation. Fester added that, ‘There are a number of reasons for this but the most common are: users are unable to navigate effectively through your website; too many options available (information overload); poor search functionality; content is unappealing; the website is not optimised or your website is not mobile friendly.’
Your ultimate goal should be to update your website so that it encourages your users to navigate, convert and return or refer. By following the above simple steps, you will be able to gain new users and re-kindle the lost love of previous users.
