Looking for ways to update your website? Focus on these five important areas, and compete and win online.
Update Your Website Homepage
Your website’s homepage is the front door to your business’s online web presence. It “shakes the hand” of your customers and welcomes them, immediately conveying the tone of your business and the experience your customers will have with your products and services.
Your homepage has three key sections that have important jobs. Let’s look at them and see how small changes to each of these areas can have an impact.
The first section on your home page is the “hero” or banner section. The best banner sections are visually interesting and set the tone and personality of the site. If your website has had the same photo in the banner section for a long time, try adding a new photo or even a short video reel that is fresh and engaging.
The banner section, or the section beneath it, should also tell a visitor what this business has to offer. If a visitor comes to your website and knows nothing about your company, will they quickly learn what you do, where you do it, and for whom? If not, it’s time to get this in your banner section or toward the top of your page.
Next, your homepage should engage with your visitors and connect them to the interior pages of your website. When you visitors click into your interior pages, it signals to the search engines that they are finding something valuable on your website, boosting your SEO. You can highlight your service areas. Or, you can show examples of work from your profile. Whatever you choose to show, make sure it will draw in your audience.
Add New Website Photos
Updating your website photos is an incredibly simple and effective way to give your website some new life. Photos convey so much about who you are and the customers you serve. Take a look at the photos on your website and see if there are ways to improve.
Here are some questions to ask:
- Are the photos you’re currently using clear and high quality? Or, can you get better ones?
- Are the people in the photos representative of the customers you currently serve or the employees that you currently have?
- Do you have more impressive project photos to show now that your company has grown?
- Is there an opportunity to substitute photos for videos or even aerial footage, which can be a great way of showing something that’s large in scale?
Changing out the photos and videos on your website and showing better and more accurate depictions of your work is a great way to level-up your company.
Refresh Your Copywriting and Boost Your On-Page Website Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Take a fresh look at your website’s written copy. Is it too long? Too short? Do you think people are reading it? Is it boring or impressive? Is it optimized for the keywords that people are using in their search queries?
It’s been said that good website design draws people into a website, but it’s carefully crafted website copywriting that sells. Is your website copy selling what you have to offer?
Website copy should be focused on the customer and meeting their unique needs with your products and services. The copy should explain what solutions the company has to offer and how the company can deliver those solutions better than anyone else. Period.
Keyword research should help guide you in preparing your copy. In order for your website to be returned in search, you need to have the keywords and phrases that people are searching. Otherwise, why would the search engines return your website?
Careers
If your company needs to recruit employees in today’s competitive job market, a high-quality careers page is a must have. Many older careers pages just listed open positions, and that was it. Today’s better careers pages have photos that exude a warm, welcoming culture. They may have descriptions of the geographic locations where the company is located and the reasons why they are great places to live. The page will offer what’s unique about the company, culture, benefits, and more to attract applicants.
The careers page should make it easy for candidates to apply. It’s better for the page to be mobile friendly and to include as few steps as possible.
Take a closer look at your careers page. Does it make you want to apply? If not, some small changes could go a long way toward improving the page and your recruitment.
Call-to-actions
Many people underestimate the importance of quality call-to-action buttons on their websites. Take a fresh look at your website. Are you asking your customers to engage with you? Are you guiding them through what you have to offer and asking them to contact you?
Every page of your website should have a call-to-action. To some people, this may seem pushy because you don’t want to come across as “salesy.” This is understandable. However, call-to-actions don’t need to be pushy. They should strike just the right tone so that your visitors reach out to you.
Want to make your website standout among the crowd online? Contact us and let’s talk.