Trying to learn how to optimize your website? Check out these helpful tips on how to make your homepage more appealing and effective.
Almost half of the world’s global population had access to the internet as of 2016. Internet access percentages are even higher in countries within Europe and America.
For your business, that means a big-time opportunity if you’re selling your products and services online.
While the vast majority of businesses have an online presence, simply being online is not the same as being online effectively. Given the sheer volume of websites competing for user’s attention, it’s now more important than ever for your website to stand out.
But do you know how to optimize your website to cut through the internet clutter?
Below, our team has put together a list of the top 5 things you can do to optimize your website’s homepage and subpages so you can start connecting with more customers online!
1) Take SEO Seriously
SEO or search engine optimization is the practice in which one tailors their web content to be easily consumed by engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
Those three search engines combined process billions of user searches every single day. That means that ensuring your content is viewed favorably by them could lead to your site being served higher on results pages.
That improved placement will equal more customers for your business.
In order to get started with basic SEO, try using free keyword tools online to research what keywords and phrases people are typing into Google when attempting to find products in your niche.
Once you’ve identified some trends, make sure that your website copy and metadata incorporate those keywords and key phrases so search engines can more easily identify a match.
Local SEO
If your business relies on local foot traffic to make money, you’ll want to research local SEO. Local SEO is like traditional SEO. Where it differs is that it focuses on information revolving around your location, business hours and contact information to connect consumers to your business.
In order to positively affect your local SEO rankings, be sure that your business’ location is stated multiple times on your website. Also be sure your hours and contact information is plainly displayed.
Finally, stay mindful of reviews on sites like Yelp. Negative reviews can impact your local SEO rank.
If you really want to make a big impact on your local or regular SEO efforts, consider hiring a professional team to assist you.
2) Make Sure Your Web Design is Responsive
There’s no excuse to not have a responsive website in today’s online world. As a matter of fact, search engines like Google will punish those that don’t have responsive design.
Responsive design enables your website to scale to whatever platform users are viewing your content on. That means that no matter if someone is on your site via their computer or their phone, you can be sure they’re getting an optimal experience.
Some businesses may worry that migrating their static website over to a responsive design can represent an expense, rest assured that hiring a professional web development team like LinkNow Media or another provider to bring your site into the future will be well worth the investment.
3) Give Your Homepage Extra Love
Most traffic that goes to your website will come from search engines which will direct users to subpages within your site. Still, you shouldn’t ignore your homepage’s design.
Your homepage says a tremendous amount about your business and the importance you put on quality and professionalism. For that reason, be sure that your homepage embodies excellent design principals.
Ensure that your home page has a streamlined message. Make sure it has good navigational elements that lure users towards more lucrative sections of your site. Also, be sure it uses attractive imagery that will catch user’s attention.
4) Take Call to Actions Seriously
It’s important that every page on your website has a purpose. That purpose should be to respectfully guide users towards the desired action.
Actions can vary from getting someone to provide you with their email address to get them to make a purchase and are commonly referred to as “call to actions”.
When building call to actions into your web content, be sure they’re enticing. A bad call to action might be asking a reader at the end of a blog post to “click here for more stuff.”
A good one would be, “Learning more about the incredible benefits our products can provide your business is just a click away!”
Also, your call to actions should be in more locations than just at the bottom of your page. To that end, consider adding 2-3 calls to action per page.
5) Start Studying Metrics
Metrics provided by analytics software such as Google Analytics are incredibly insightful when trying to figure out how to optimize your website.
Analytics can tell you how many users are coming to your site. They can tell you what pages are most popular. They can even tell you what pages are making you the most money.
If you’re looking at your analytics and noticing that users are only spending a few seconds on a certain page (meaning the page has a high bounce rate) you can investigate ways to make the page more sticky.
On the flip side, if you have a particular page that has high retention rates, that means you may want to include more opportunities on that page for users to make purchases.
Studying your website’s metrics allows you to take advantage of opportunities and fix weaknesses. If you’re serious about making your site web optimized, you need to be serious about data.
Wrapping Up How to Optimize Your Website
From your site’s homepage to its deeper pages, taking the time to optimize your content will make you more money.
To get started, implement the tips listed above. Make sure you have excellent SEO, hire a design team to make your site 100% responsive, dig into your site’s metrics, and leverage call to actions effectively.
Once you’ve mastered that, work with professionals and keep asking how to optimize your website. Doing so will allow both your digital strategy and business to keep growing!
You can find more business-related resources covering everything from to on our atyourbuisness.com page.
Keep learning and growing by checking out everything we have to offer today!
