In this digital age, having an online presence is vital for a business. This is especially true if you want to expand your customer base beyond your immediate local area. It may seem easy to just whip together a website, but how do you make it stand out from the crowd? The internet is packed full of business vying for consumers attention, so what makes them stand out? We asked these experts to share what they have found to be the BEST ways to make your website as attention grabbing and productive, as possible.
Max Robinson
“I want everyone who lands on my site to feel like they’re dealing with real people and not just a faceless corporation, so I ensure that I include an author bio with an image of my face on all of my key landing pages. It’s a little detail which definitely has a positive impact on my conversion rates and makes people feel more trustworthy towards my business. ”
Colin Mulligan
“One of my favorite web features to make your website stand out is incorporating video. Videos can capture your audience’s attention like no other form of media can– and this is vital when you’re battling a limited
attention span and vast market competition. Introducing the site with well produced videography lures the user in and urges them to interact with the website.
Furthermore, videos allow for another way to share your message with your audience. Very few people are going to read all of the copy on your website, so you want to be able to express your brand in different, more interactive manners. The engaging audio-visual experience that videos provide are a great way to do just that. ”
Carmine Mastropierro
Mastro Commerce
@mastro_digital
“The first website feature that can make your business stand out is a good portfolio. If you offer a service, clients will want to see that you’ve done work before and an idea of what to expect. Even better, offer case studies of how improvements previous clients made as a result of your service. Secondly, having a press page is another useful feature. It acts as social proof while adding to your businesses branding and image. ”
April Davis
LUMA – Luxury Matchmaking
@LUMA_search
The most important thing a brand can do with their website is appear to be real. Consumers want to work with real people and people who actually care about their consumers. We have had great success with adding the real component to our website.
To differentiate ourselves from other matchmaking companies we have added a weekly blog that gives advice and tips to our current clients as well as anyone interested in becoming one. These blogs are written and performed by me in our video vlogs to put a face to who you will be working with.
Another way we have made our business stand out is by using real testimonials from clients. We take actual screen shots of texts, emails, etc and post them on our site. That way everyone who comes to our page can see our success stories and happy customers. They can see this isn’t something we just made up and wrote on our website.
Krista Neher
Boot Camp Digital
@kristaneher
If you want your website to stand out, the first thing to do is make sure it is FAST. This doesn’t sound exciting (I know, you want to focus on design) but site speed is the #1 thing that will impact your google listing and the experience that people have when they get to your site. If your site takes over 3 seconds to load, according to Google you will lose traffic as people are impatient.
If you want your site to get results, leads and sales, make sure that you have a clear call to action. What do you want someone to do when they visit your site? Call for a free quote? Sign up for your newsletter with helpful tips? Whatever it is, make sure that you clearly and specifically encourage people to do it. Remember that not everyone will start with your home page, so it should be visible from all pages.
if you can, use real photos of your business, customers, services vs. stock photos. Stock photos don’t build a strong connection to your business or build trust. Consider where and how you can use real photos on your site – studies show that these are more likely to get people to take action. If you have them you can also show photos taken by your customers. These show that people really love your product or service.
Nate Masterson
With over half of all web traffic coming from handheld devices, businesses need to ensure their website is both responsive and mobile-friendly. Besides for providing users with a clean and clear website experience, search engines are starting to give ranking priority to these types of web pages. Making your WAH mobile-friendly may seem like a big task, but it’s a lot easier than you might think and can have huge payoffs. While some development platforms offer automatic mobile adjustment, it can be as easy as creating a separate URL for mobile devices.
Security –
If you want your WAH business to be taken seriously it’s crucial to guarantee your customers’ privacy and security. Adding trust badges is a fundamental component of any successful business website and is proven to increase conversions and overall engagement. Trust seals such as SSL certificates effectively encrypt all communication between merchants and consumers, protect sensitive user data, and prove your legitimacy. Furthermore, the seal you choose can make a big difference. For example, recognized providers such as Norton are proven to increase user confidence and are definitely worth the investment.
Note from Leslie:
If you’ve been visiting WAHS over the last year, you’ll have noticed many changes going on with the site to help make it not only standout, but easily accessible and usable to visitors. While the design is important to helping people find what they’re looking for, there is a lot of back end stuff that can make or break a site.
I agree with our experts on their recommendations, and would highlight:
- Making your side mobile responsive. Google is said to rank sites that are able to be viewed on mobile devices better. If you use Google analytics, you can see how many people view you site on what device. I’ve found more and more people are viewing on phones and tablets.
- Make it load fast. This has been in an issue for WAHS. I just paid someone to speed up the site. While having cache feature is helpful, I’ve also started compressing my graphics, which can also take time to load.
- Make sure people find what they came to find. If you make it hard to find the content, people will leave.
- Don’t ignore SEO. While search engines shouldn’t be your main source of traffic, making it easy for them to find and rank your site is a free and easy way to get a good percentage of your traffic.
