In Luke’s article “What To Do With Your Website in 2017,” he reminds us to be aware of new web trends because they will help optimize your website, increase your ROI and stay ahead of your competition. Given the nature of the World Wide Web, design and development standards for websites are always changing, which is exciting for some and overwhelming for others. Whatever category you find yourself in, here are five tips to help you understand and take advantage of recent website trends.
1. Design for Large and Small Screens Alike – Over the past few years, much emphasis has been placed on designing websites that are mobile-friendly, which means they work the same way across all devices. At the same time, however, you don’t want to forget those users who access your site on large, high-resolution monitors because – as Luke mentions in his article – most websites are seeing a good split between desktop and mobile traffic. As computer screens get bigger and Smart TVs become more popular, start considering how your website can better serve big screen users.
2. Convert Your Leads into Customers – A crucial part of your ROI is your business’s ability to turn leads into customers. Your website is a great tool for this, but in order to gauge how your site is doing, you will need to implement a website analytics system. One of the systems Luke recommends is Google Analytics, a freemium service that allows you to track how much traffic comes to your website, see what pages are visited most often and identify where traffic tends to drop off. If you find certain web pages are struggling in that last category, you may want to utilize split testing… which leads to the next tip.
3. Experiment with Split Testing – As Luke explained, split testing – also known as A/B testing – allows you to put two different versions of a page head to head and see which performs better. A classic application of this would be to develop two versions of your contact form, each with a different look. Of the people who decide to fill out this form, half will see one version and half will see the other. You are then able to measure which form does better and use that version moving forward. Repeat this process for all key conversion points on your website to continue increasing your ROI throughout the year.
4. Focus on Local Search Engine Optimization – In his article, Luke mentions four key ways to optimize your local SEO to get and stay ahead of your competition.
- Online Listings: These listings already exist – such as Google My Business and Bing Places for Business – and not claiming them means you’re missing conversion opportunities while possibly passing misinformation to your stakeholders if your business name, address and phone number are not consistent across listings.
- Meta Titles and Descriptions: Each page on your website is assigned a Meta title and description that allow search engines to analyze and categorize the content of the pages and present these results online. Reviewing and updating these with keywords will make your website more human and search engine friendly.
- Local Structured Data Markup: This is when you mark up certain data within your website to help search engines more easily learn what your business does. This is by far the most technical tactic Luke recommends in his article, but the benefits of this practice helps search engines present rich information in their results that positively impact your click-through rates.
- Online Reviews: Luke references a recent study by BrightLocal that found 7 out of 10 customers will leave a review online if you ask them to and 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. If this doesn’t convince you of the importance of online reviews to the growth of your SEO, we’re not sure what will.
While some of these techniques are more technical than others, utilizing each will give you a strong foundation for SEO locally that has the potential to expand regionally and perhaps even nationally.
5. Be Timely With Web Design Trends – Two of the top web design trends Luke recommends using this year are multimedia and animation because they are the most engaging way to reinforce your message. To discern how and where to use this, Luke encourages readers to pinpoint which pages on their website are text heavy. Then decide what information could be better explained with video and/or animation because visuals always speak louder than words.
As with most processes in marketing, website success is not something that will happen overnight. But if you’re able to assess your strengths and weaknesses, have a plan of action, and set measurable goals for website improvement and development, success will be that much easier to come by.
If you find yourself needing help with any, some or all of the tactics mentioned here, give us a call at 701-478-1111 and ask to speak with a Marketing Advisor or visit absolutemg.com/contact. Our team of web professionals would be happy to help.