Is Your Website Linked For Trouble?

When you run a business, your website should be front and center stage, allowing you to promote your brand 24/7/365.

Unfortunately, too many business websites have this glitch or that glitch, issues that ultimately can cost the business owner money. Yes, that is money that essentially is being tossed out the window in missed revenue opportunities.

While having a professional business website might sound like a piece of cake, you would likely be surprised at how many companies struggle with something as simple as this.

Don’t Assume Your Site is Fine

The best way to make sure your business website is not a ticking time bomb for failure is to periodically review it.

Such reviews should encompass checking a plethora of components of your site, making sure there are no hidden bugs that could cause problems.

Some of the simple but oftentimes overlooked checks include:

• Appearance – For starters, how visually appealing is your business site? If it is heavy on the text and light on the imagery, you can be setting yourself up for fewer views and less interest. It should not come as a huge surprise that many viewers like imagery, so do a sampling of your site to see the text to image ratio;
  
  
• Linking – Again, this sounds like a no-brainer to most people, but do all your site’s links work properly? Even just one broken link could turn a number of consumers off to what your business has to offer if they have trouble finding it online. Whether consumers are going online to Find Vonage deals, locate the best auto insurance, track down the best attorneys in town or a host of other needs; make sure your website is ready for the traffic. Just like your site should not take forever and a day to load, your links must be top-notch too;
  
  
• Staffing – This may seem like a trivial matter to some, but you should always have a list of your key team members on your site, a list which is easy to locate. With so much business being done online these days, it is important that consumers know who does what at your company. Make sure your top chain of command is listed (including their roles with the business), along with key sales and editorial players. It is also a good idea that you list their work emails so consumers can contact them (see more below) directly if needed;
  
  
• Contacting – How frustrated do you think consumers are when they have trouble finding appropriate contact information on your site? The answer is likely very frustrated. Your contact information should be concise and easy to find. If consumers have to wind their way through a maze on your site to locate it, many of them may just leave the site before you ever answer their question and/or make a sale.

While there are certainly other key components of your website setup, keep the aforementioned ones in mind when you do periodic reviews.