What Does Your Website Say About Your Business?

When you run a business, be it the smallest of the small or one of the largest of the large, proper communications is essential.

Without a sound and consistent communications plan in place, your business stands a good chance of going unheard. With that said, a good communications strategy involves a wide-range of tools, including your website, phones, texting, social media and much more.

In order to get the most out of your communications, you should review your different tools regularly to see what is working and what needs some tweaking.

Is Your Site Connecting to More Sales?

So that you can give your business the best website possible, remember these tips when reviewing and re-energizing your best weapon to gaining more sales:

• Operation – First and foremost, how operational is your website? Does it load easily for customers, both current and potential ones? Nothing frustrates a consumer more when going on a business site than finding a slow-loading site to have to deal with. Make sure you regularly look at your site’s load time, searching for ways to improve it when needed. Just as you’d likely want your home Internet connection to work wonders, be it Verizon FiOS deals or another such provider, the same holds true for your business site. If the user’s experience translates into slow site speed, don’t expect them to stick around for too long. Also, do the links (see more below) work or do you (and more importantly consumers) find them breaking down on a regular basis? Broken links do you, your products and/or services, and your customers no good. Once again, broken links can lead to customer frustration and potentially lost business;
  
  
• Pictures – Images are a huge plus for any business website. How many times have you visited another business site for your learning, browsing or buying needs and been disappointed in the visual aspect presented? This is all the more reason you should make sure your site is visually appealing, colorful, and welcoming to viewers. While too many photos, charts, ads etc. can overwhelm the visitor, find the right mix so viewers will enjoy surfing your site, not feel like they are surrounded by nothing but copy;
  
  
• Linking – Last but not least, relevant links on your website are more important than many business owners sometimes realize. Take the time to regularly review who and what you are linking to. Are they quality sites or heavy on the spam side? Do they share common business interests with the products and/or services you sell? If you have a business blog (and you certainly should have one), running relevant links in there certainly doesn’t hurt. Get with other business blogs and share and share alike. This is a good way to not only help your Google cause when done correctly, but also a great means of networking.

Your business website is the heart and brains of your operations in today’s fast-paced tech world.

Make sure your site gives you a reason to be proud, not a reason to hope that more and more consumers will leave disappointed.