You spent all this time creating an awesome website. Your new site looks phenomenal on a desktop computer, mobile phone, and tablet. You have page after page of great information you know your customers can’t wait to get their hands on. Congrats! It’s Miller Time. Your boss will be overjoyed. The leads/sales/donations are just going to start rolling in, right? Not so fast.
Websites are like delicate flowers. Neglect them and they’ll wither and die, never to be seen on the Internet again. Okay, it’s not quite that dramatic, but developing a website is only half the battle. The best sites receive constant curation. They’re fine-tuned to meet the ever-changing needs of their audience.
These 5 tips will ensure your new site is clicking on all cylinders and keep the big boss happy.
1. Create Regular Content
Blogging used to be a nice-to-have on a website or something companies do if they “get around to it”. Today, regular content that’s relevant to visitors is a must-have. B2B marketers who use blogs receive 67% more leads than those who do not. Google almost any topic and you’ll see the majority of the top results are from blogs. Blog posts also give you great content to post on social media to drive traffic back to your website. Sounds great right? So what are you waiting for? Ah, don’t have time. Hire a copywriter to write articles for you or roll up your sleeves and get ‘er done.
2. Include Video
Video engages visitors more than any other medium. Need proof? Two numbers should convince you of the importance of having video as a part of your website. 80% of your online visitors will watch a video, while only 20% will actually read content. Face it people: we have a short attention span. Who wouldn’t rather watch an instruction video than read a hundred-page manual? According to Cisco, by 2019, 80% of global Internet consumption will be video content. One last stat: 93% of sites use some from of video. Don’t be stuck in the 7%.
3. Measure ROI
The first question to ask when you’re developing your website is, “What are my goals for the site?” Clearly define your calls to action. Do you want visitors to fill out a quote request form? Track calls from your website? Write your goals down. Hold your web designer, developer, or agency accountable for measuring those results. The best tool for measuring ROI is free – Google Analytics. Use goals to measure how often users complete specific actions. Examples include when a user fills out that quote form, when someone stays on a blog post for 3 minutes, a call to a website-only phone number, or a sale.
4. Grade Your Site
There are a lot a tools for evaluating your website. Our favorite is HubSpot’s Website Grader. You thought you were done with grades after college. Silly rabbit. Put your site through the Grader and you’ll receive a grade from 0-100 that ranks the site on performance, mobile, SEO, and security. It even outputs a snazzy report with tips on how to improve.
5. Rinse and Repeat
Review your Google Analytics monthly at a minimum. Go back to those original goals for your site. Are you converting on your calls to action? Celebrate success. Find out what works and do it again. Scrap the things that aren’t working.
Continue to reinvent your site and you’ll have a marketing tool that delivers measurable results for years to come. So, roll up your sleeves and get to work: there’s an Internet to conquer. And when it comes to review time, you can say, “Hey boss, you know how well our new site is working for us? Remember that raise we talked about?”
By Jason Piasecki, Partner + Website Launcher
Jason has been part of over 400 website launches over the past 20 years. He designed and programmed his first website in 1996.
