Think of your business's website as your online store. "9 in 10 shoppers search new brick-and-mortar businesses online - Before visiting a brick-and-mortar business in person for the first time, 91% of shoppers will look up the business online." from Digital. These Windows shoppers need to find the information they seek fast, or they will bounce off your site. According to The Daily Egg, "The 15 Second Rule: 3 Reasons Why Users Leave a Website," visitors will spend 15 seconds finding what they are looking for before they bounce off your webpage.
So, what does your business's online footprint consist of?
Do you have a website?
Is your website mobile-friendly?
When was the last time you reviewed your website?
Do you review your analytics regularly?
When was the last time you audited your site?
Are you on social media? Are your social channels linking to your website, and are your social channels available on your website for website visitors to visit?
Here are the top 5 things to review on your website:
1) Improve site load speed
Do you need speed? Your website visitors expect it.
"Google's research showed that the chance of a bounce increased by 32% when a page load time went from one to three seconds and by 90% when the page load time went from one to five seconds. If a site takes up to 10 seconds to load, then the chance of a bounce increases to 123%." according to WebsiteBuilderExpert's article on Website Load Time Statistics: Why Speed Matters in 2022
Videos and photos tend to be large files. Optimize these assets for your site. Photos should be sized precisely for placement. If the box is 300x300 pixels, your image should be 300x300 pixels at 72 dpi, saved as jpg, and sent through optimization software.
Consider hosting your videos on a YouTube channel so they do not live on your site. While embedding videos on the site is a cleaner look, it adds incredible data and drastically affects speed, especially on mobile.
Tools for managing videos, and photos for your website
Canva: Canva is an excellent tool for creating and editing photos, videos, and more. Canva offers a free account or a modestly priced paid version with many more features. If you use social media with your business, consider the paid version to take advantage of the social scheduler feature.
Adobe: If your business produces a high volume of graphics, you may want to consider an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. This subscription will give you access to Adobe's products: Adobe Express, Acrobat Pro, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Premiere Pro are just a few of the many outstanding programs with this subscription.
Adobe Express: Adobe Express, formerly Adobe Spark, is another fantastic content creation tool for creating and editing graphics, including social content publishing.
Create a YouTube Channel: Set up your YouTube channel to publish your videos. Be sure to link your Channel on your website.
Pingdom Website Speed Test: Test your website speed.
Compressor: Compressor is an easy-to-use image-compressing online service.
Kraken.io: Kraken is another excellent online file compression tool. Check it out.
CloudConvert: Converts your image files online - convert your PNG to a WEBP or another file format.
Convertio: Here is another file conversion online tool.
Website Planet: One of our readers suggested this tool for managing your PNG and JPG image compressions. Thanks for the suggestion, Sophia.
2) Keyword content
What message does your audience want to hear? Put yourself in your customer's seat, open a search browser, and start typing.
What words or phrases are your customers searching for?
Make a note of these words and phrases.
Open the top five or more sites on that Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
Read.
Make notes of what you like and what you do not want on each of their sites.
Now review your site through this lens.
Pro Tip: Use Imagine's Website Content Planner, tab: Keyword Research, for researching your site's content. Make a copy of this Google Sheet file and share it with your team members, allowing collaboration across your team.
Review your top competitor's sites - using Imagine's Website Content Planner, tab: Competitor Sites. If most of your business comes from brick-and-mortar shops, it is easy to identify your competitors. How do their sites compare to your site and or your research? Identify what you like and do not like on your competitor's sites.
Write Like an 8th-Grader: Keep your written word simple. Strive for an 8th-grade level to help ensure your content is digestible by readers and makes for easy crawling. Check out "Readability tests" from Siteimprove. They give an excellent example of the importance of readability and highlight several tests to assist you in writing content: Flesch Kincaid Calculator, SMOG Index, or the Gunning Fog Index. Microsoft 365 offers readability scores.
Refrain From Industry Jargon: Industry jargon will likely impact your readability score.
Technical Terms: Keep technical terms to a minimum. Explain or define the word's meaning, and most importantly, keep it simple.
Acronyms: Make sure to define the acronyms at the beginning of your page and include the (acronyms in parentheses like this immediately following the meaning. Here is an example, keep it simple stupid (KISS). Fun fact about KISS: In 1960, the US Navy established this principle - KISS, noting that most systems work best if they are kept simple rather than complicated.
3) Mobile Optimization
Ensure your site is mobile-compatible. After establishing your site, test it on your mobile devices (phones and tablets). Check the load speed, sizing, and placement of text, photos, etc. Set up anchors and offer mobile navigation for scrolling long pages. Remember, you have about 15 seconds to get visitors where they need to be before they bounce off your site.
Text may need resizing.
Margins may need adjusting.
Photos may need resizing.
Headers may need resizing.
Pro Tip 1: When making adjustments for your mobile view, do so at the site level, not the individual page level, at least not at first.
Pro Tip 2: Using Google Chrome Developer Tool, select the Device Toolbar and view the site on various mobile devices.
4) Set up your webpages - SEO housekeeping
Page title
Only use one H1 or Page Title per page. Usually, your page title is related to your page's slug. Slug is part of the URL that comes after the main website URL. Here is an example: In this example, the slug is Top-5-Things-to-Review-on-Your-Website [https://www.imaginebusinesssolutions.com/top-5-things-to-review-on-your-website]. Page titles impact your Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Headers
You can have multiple headers on a page - such as H2 (header 2), H3 (header 3), etc. Use them to divide content on a page, making it easier for visitors to view and digest your content. Each header tag is styled similarly to keep it appealing to the eye. Incorporate your Keywords in your H2 and H3 tags, making it easy for crawlers to view your site.
Meta descriptions
The Meta Description is a summary of what is on the page. Meta Descriptions appear in the SERPs listings and play a significant role in SEO. Keep your writing concise and hit on the high points covered on the page - highlighting why someone must read the page.
Text
Use your keyword phrase in the first paragraph on the page and throughout it where it makes sense. CAUTION: However, DO NOT KEYWORD STUFF. Keyword stuffing counts against you in SERPs. Depending on the page, you will want a minimum of 600 words up to 1,200 or more. Blog articles should have more words than landing pages.
When writing your content, consider the following questions when developing your content.
Why do businesses or people do business with you?
What benefits do you offer your customers?
How do they order?
How do they contact you?
What problems do you solve for your customers?
What actions do you want your visitors to take?
Alt tags
Search engines use alt tags when crawling sites, so take the time to ensure you complete this step in your SEO process. Alt Tags assist visitors when viewing your site. For the visually impaired, the readers will read the Alt Tags aloud. Watch this video, Screen Reader Demo for Digital Accessibility from UCSF Documents & Media Photography, to see how screen readers work. It will clarify why some of these SEO items are so important.
Be specific when writing out your Alt tags.
Do not include "image of" or "picture of."
Use keywords sparingly.
Limit to 125 characters.
Do not use it in design elements.
5) Keep your website current
After your site is updated, schedule the following review. Some businesses review their site monthly, while others review it quarterly and some annually. It depends on where you get most of your business and the size of your business as to how often you should check your site.
Pro Tip: Update your business's Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to ensure staff changes are current, new products are available, products are updated, list new facilities, changes to hours, etc. Does everyone on your team know who to contact if they have changes or concerns about the website?
All sizes
Imagine working with all business sizes. Imagine supports businesses with digital marketing efforts and marketing project management, from startups to small businesses to corporations. Partnering with a company outside your organization offers a fresh perspective and a new lens, keeping your site and marketing up to snuff.
Contact Imagine and let us know how we can help!