6 Ways to get the most out of your business website

Whether you are a small or medium enterprise your website forms a crucial part of your marketing strategy. We have compiled a list of essential elements that your business website needs to have. Over the years we have seen many clients fail to implement these and ultimately their website does not work for them. If you have these elements on your website, you are making sure that you set your business up for success.

Your website is an essential marketing tool for your business and is up 24 hours of the day. Make the best of your website and set it up correctly so that new website visitors can easily find the content they are looking for and immediately know what your business will offer them.

Here are the 6 Ways to get the most out of your business website.

1. Clear Domain Name (URL)

The domain name of your website indicates the web address assigned to your site. Think of it this way just like a street addresses your website also resides at a specific address on a server. When clients come to look for your website, they will type the address into the search bar and will immediately be directed to your website. A Domain name is a unique identifier and cannot be used or shared over multiple sites.

It is important to make sure that either your name or the main keyword your services are focussing on are included in the domain name. Be cautious of overly long Domain names. If the domain is too long the chances of misspelling it will increase. Be sure to keep this in mind especially if you use the email from that domain. Whatever your domain name will reflect in your email address, so Admin@thisdomainisclearlytoolongtouse.co.za will not work.

Try to get a short, catchy domain that is easy to spell and remember. This will save you many hours trying to spell an email address over the phone for a client. Or missing out on actively looking clients because they cannot find or spell your domain name.

2. Good hosting

Good hosting is often an overlooked area, as most people tend to go for the cheaper options. With great hosting comes excellent support, uptime, server maintenance and speed. Cheap hosting normally skips on these and just focus on supplying the environment, but at the cost of all the rest.

Remember that hosting a website on a secure server has numerous advantages. Be cautious of using servers that are privately run, always keep the safety of your information in mind. Be sure that should something go wrong with your host that they will be able to assist you in retrieving your data and getting your website up and running in no time.

Rather go with large hosting companies that have industry awards, properly trained staff, server data centres across South Africa and years of knowledge. This might cost a bit more a month, but do you want your business website which is one of your biggest marketing tools to lie on an unsecured server?

A great hosting company will protect you from downtime and slow server response. They will be there to assist should your emails not be working, and you will receive great customer support should you need it. We host all our clients with South Africa’s best hosting company Xneelo. They offer the best support and updates we have seen in the 10 plus years we have been operating.

3. A Properly maintained website

A website is ever evolving. The code that makes your website perform optimally requires regular updating. Without these updates, sometimes referred to as code patches, your website will inevitably encounter some issues and be at the risk of breaking. From security features in the background to how websites respond to search engines, the code of your website will require regular updating and checking to ensure it is still performing as it should.

Just like a car, your website should be maintained and serviced regularly. If you drive your car without checking the oil or doing regular services, the chances increase that your car’s engine will break.

Recently we had an e-commerce client come to us with a website that was not maintained. Elements on the website broke and the website did not display correctly. Because the site was not maintained regularly it fell into disarray causing a loss of income for our client with the number of errors on the website. This could have been avoided with the knowledge that a website needs to be maintained on a regular basis. Many business owners do not know this and should be aware that their websites need to be looked after.

We suggest that the website be checked for new updates, core files and plugins at least once a month. We offer monthly care plans so that you can have peace of mind that your website is looked after monthly and running.

4. Ongoing updates

One of the main failing points for a website is that after the website has been launched nothing is done with the website. Websites are not a set it and forget it tool. A website should be constantly updated, and new information, articles and content added. Education is one of the best ways to inform your clients about your product and industry.

Recommendations here would be to start a weekly blog to inform clients about your industry, news, latest updates, and releases. Many clients don’t want to do this as it is a long-term and constant task to do but so many studies show that constant updates and content makes for steady long-term growth.

If you still show team members on your website that are not with the company anymore you need to update the site as soon as possible.

5. Advertising your website

Advertising your website is another overlooked area. Many launch a website and tell all their friends to go check out the website, but what happens in the weeks after the hype has faded away. You need to constantly work on attracting your ideal client to the website. This can be done by paid advertising on social media and Google Ads.

Advertising your website on Facebook, Instagram LinkedIn and Google ads can make a great source of constant traffic. It is a paid option, but it is still one of the best ways to make people come to your website.

6. Social Media

Having a great content strategy on social media makes you an authority in your industry and helps you look good in the process. If a new prospect comes to your website and checks out your Facebook page and nothing is happening, or worse, your last update was 4 years ago it makes you look instantly like a company that does not care. Even though this may not be true about your company, the perceived outlook in public might be different.

Make sure this is not you. Create posts, write content, promote videos. Place blog posts and articles on your website and share them on social media to generate traffic back to your website. Having a constant flow of traffic to your website is a great way to stay top of mind with clients, generate leads and get new clients.

Many clients leave this step and rely on the 20 hits they get a month. Not realizing that those 20 people coming to their website could have been themselves opening the website each week and maybe a few bots. The small websites should aim to get much higher numbers and constantly increase.

Let’s look at an example of 50 new users a month that come to your website and from those 50 users 1 completes the contact form to get in contact with you. Now imagine what you could do if you get 5000 new users a month with the same result of 1 new contact per 50 users. That’s 100 new inquiries to a product or service that you offer.

In this article, we spoke about the 6 Ways to get the most out of your business website. If you don’t have these in place, it could be a loss of income that you don’t want to pass by. If you need assistance in any of these areas or need a new website setup, partner with us to ensure your website is set up for success so that your company and future is set up for growth.