Expert ADVICE
Is Your Website Crippling Your Marketing Efforts?
Kate Rollins Kate Rollins Web Design, LLC (website design, SEO & SMM) 888.242.1773 www.KateWebDesign.com
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he majority of websites I evaluate for prospective clients are losing the game. Some look great, but you can’t tell what the business is about. Others are so busy, you can’t find what you need. Still others take a precious long time to load. Some are not mobile friendly, and these don’t even get listed in Google search! Your website is often the very first impression of your business. It exists to communicate your brand and boost your marketing goals. This makes it a key investment for your business success. Before you read any further, please pick up your smart phone and type in its browser your company’s website URL. What do you see? You will most likely know right away if your website is responsive or at least mobile friendly. Such websites detect the screen size of your device and
alter their appearance in order to provide the best user experience in terms of navigability and readability.
once you have successfully crossed this threshold, you want your visitors to keep coming back. Not an easy task!
User experience has become a crucial factor in search engine ranking. Every SEO* specialist will tell you that Google penalizes websites that are not mobilefriendly by not showing them in mobile search. More than half of US consumers now turn to their mobile device for the information they need to choose a brand or service provider. About 70 percent of mobile users leave your site if it’s not mobile-friendly.
There are some very common and costly mistakes that business owners make with their websites. If you hire a web designer/developer who is not a marketing specialist, they will most likely make some of these mistakes. Then you will need to hire a marketing expert to correct them.
Wordpress is the most popular, elegant, and flexible platform for designing responsive/mobile-friendly websites. However, not all Wordpress themes are responsive, so choose carefully! And if your website is more than 3-4 years old, it most certainly is not. But is it enough that your website looks good on all devices? Once found in search, your website must grab and hold your visitor’s short attention span. It needs to compel them to stay long enough to be intrigued, to remember your brand, and to follow your Call to Action (i.e. what you want them to do on your website: learn how you can help them, sign up for your newsletter, buy your product, call you, etc.). And
If your website fails to follow any of these basic rules, it may be crippling instead of boosting your marketing efforts: 1. Be responsive/ mobile-friendly 2. Show your phone number and location on top 3. Be easy to navigate 4. Have a prominent Call to Action 5. Be equipped with hacking defense and backup plugins 6. Enable social media sharing 7. Set up Google Analytics to observe traffic data Is it time for a revamp of your website? Contact me for a free initial consultation! (*SEO=search engine optimization)