Your company’s website is typically an expensive investment to your business. As any good business owner, you’re probably looking to get a high return on the investment.
If your website’s ROI has been flat or non-existent, here are 10 things you can do right now for better results.
1. Set Goals for Your Website
Improving your website’s ROI starts by establishing measurable goals. You want to be highly specific with your objectives. Don’t just say you want more website traffic or more email addresses. Come up with target numbers.
Setting goals will drive you to make decisions that could help you reach your goals.
2. Pay Attention to Analytics
What’s the point of having goals if you never check to see if you’re reaching them? Many companies want high website ROIs, but they do nothing to measure it. Regularly check your website analytics.
Your website should be connected to Google Analytics, so you can examine the effectiveness of your website. Pay attention to the number of visits and unique visits as well as page views, average visit duration and bounce rate.
Set aside some time to regularly look at your analytics. If you’re not happy with what you’re seeing, brainstorm ways to improve results.
3. Make It Easy for Customers to Find Your Website
Too often companies build a website and then they hope and pray for more leads. If you want to improve your website ROI, you need to make an active effort to drive traffic to it.
Make sure your website is optimized for important search engine keywords. Connect your website to your social media channels. List it in directories relevant to your local communities and industry. Consider advertising your website. Mention your website to customers when you’re talking with them in-person or on the phone.
You need to make a conscious effort to drive traffic to your website.
4. Make Your Website Easily Accessible
The harder it is for people to access your company’s website, the harder it’s going to be to achieve a high ROI. You want to make it a breeze for people to access your website. Here are a few things you can do to improve accessibility:
- Check load times – The average website load time is about 10 seconds. You want your website to perform better than that because people are impatient.
- Support multiple web browsers – You want to make sure that your website works properly in multiple browsers. The top browsers include Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Apple Safari.
- Support multiple devices – Websites need to be accessible via different types of devices including laptops, smartphones (iPhone, Android) and tablets (iPad, Android, Kindle Fire).
To ensure that your website is easily accessible and simple to use, consider website testing services. Companies like UserTesting.com can test and examine your website’s ease of use.
5. Focus on Website Visitors – Not Your Company
Take a close look at your website. Are you talking about how you can help customers with their needs or are you just talking about your company? Too often, businesses talk about “I,” “me” and “we” instead of “you” and “your.”
If you want to grow your website ROI, take a close look at the copy on your website and figure out if you’re actually proving them with helpful information.
6. Dare to Be Different
Too often the websites in a particular industry all look the same. How are you going to standout if you look exactly like the competition? Make it your goal to be bold with your website.
Don’t do things just to be different. Research your customer base and see what’s important to them. Have a selling point that makes you unique when compared with the competition. Things like great customer service and reasonable pricing will not cut it, because your competition is saying the very same things.
Take a deep look at what you do better than the rest of the competition. Then display it on your website.
7. Be Honest on Your Website
Your website should not exaggerate or lie. It’s important for your company’s reputation that you tell the truth. Include honest pricing and be up front about additional costs and fees.
People can typically see right through the B.S. Being upfront with visitors to your website will help improve your standing and may boost your website ROI.
8. Work to Build Trust on Your Website
Whether it’s online or in person, most customers are worried about getting ripped off. Your website should work to build trust. Elements that help to build trust include:
- Contact information – Is your phone number and business address clearly visible?
- Testimonials – Are there reviews and information from previous customers to help with the buying process?
- Memberships – Are there indicators on your website that you’re a member of trusted organizations such as the Better Business Bureau?
- Privacy policy – Is there information on your website that tells people exactly how you will protect any personal information that they give to you?
The design of your website can also influence trust factors. If your website looks like it was designed in the 1990s, it’s quite possible customers may take their business elsewhere.
9. Educate Customers on Your Website
Does your website help answer important questions that customers may have about your products and services? Your website should be a resource for customers to make informed decisions.
It should also answer questions of existing customers, not just new and potential customers. Include information that will help people use and understand your products and services.
The goal is to keep customers coming back to your website to stay informed and get help. This will help keep these customers loyal to your business.
10. Avoid Information Overload
Sometimes businesses tend to load their websites up with so much information that customers become overwhelmed and leave. You want to be clear and straight to the point with your customers on your website. Provide them with useful information.
Include headlines and bullet points so people can scan information quickly. The key is to quickly give people the information that they need so you’re not wasting their time.
