It’s very important to have a web site for your business, but is it effective? If your web site is not effective you will:
Waste the money you spent creating the site.
Squander the time you invested in the site.
Throw away your monthly hosting fees.
Scare away potential clients.
With that in mind, let’s talk about what makes a website effective.
You must first identify, “What do you want the visitors on your web site to do?” Should they buy something? Fill out a form as a sales lead? Download a white paper? Join a mailing list?
Once you know what you want your visitors to do, you need to take a hard look at your site. Is there a clear, easy to locate “Call to Action”? In other words, does every single page on your site clearly and easily lead visitors to do what you want them to do?
Does your website have a contact link and your phone number on every page? This is a must!
If your web site has a clear Call to Action and the proper Contact information, great! If not, it’s time to redesign.
Once your “Call to Action” and Contact information are in place. You need to make sure your web site is user friendly. You can hire a company to do an expensive accessibility and usability test, or you can call a few friends, your Mom, brother, sister, cousin, (no one especially computer savvy) and ask them to do a simple walk through with you. During this walk through, ask them to stay on the phone with you, go to your website and take the desired action (your call to action). If they stumble, jot it down. Have at least five people walk through your site. See if more than one of them hit the same stumbling block or problem, if so, it’s time to redesign. If not, super!
If you have a good call to action and your site is user friendly, you need to check how SEO friendly your site is. SEO is jargon for Search Engine Optimization. This is what you do to make Google and MSN like your web site and rank it high in the search results. SEO is an important part of your SEM (Search Engine Marketing) strategy.
There have been volumes of books written about SEM and SEO, but we just want to make sure your site has some basics. Check the following:
When you load the pages on your website and look in the title bar (top left of the entire browser window), does it list your company/website name and what page you are on? You want the answer to be yes.
Is your site made with a lot of flash? If so, you may not be very SEO friendly.
Is your site made with a lot of graphics? Did your designer use graphics instead of text? If so, you may not be very SEO friendly.
If you hired a designer, did your designer ask you about SEO? I hope so.
If you designed the site yourself, did you read a bit about SEO before you designed? You want to make sure you at least have alt tags and meta tags.
Did the person who wrote your copy do keyword research before writing your copy?
If your site is SEO Friendly, User Friendly, has a clear Call to Action and easy to find Contact Information, you’re in good shape. If you’re not sure and this list is making you dizzy, contact me to discuss your struggles getting clients with your website.
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