Now that the new year is here, it’s time to set some goals for your business. If you have a website or want to start one, why not make it a new year’s resolution to make improvements to it? Whether you’re just getting started or you’re looking to improve your website and increase visitors, here are a few ways you can help make your website’s usability and visibility even better in 2017.
Use a navigation menu
Whether you have a simple website with just a few different pages (e.g., Home, About Us and Contact) or you have a detailed website with numerous pages, your website should definitely have a navigation menu. Implementing a navigation menu on your site can help your visitors easily find what they’re looking for without growing frustrated by searching through your entire website. Where you choose to physically place your navigation menu, whether it’s at the top of the page, at the bottom of the page or a sidebar on either side, is totally up to you, but you’ll want to make sure the navigation menu is in the same place for every page on your website so your visitors know where to find it — consistency is key. It also helps to have a “back to home” button on the same spot on every page of your site and a search feature so your users can easily search and locate what they need.
Include a contact form
Another way to help make your website more user-friendly is to include a simple contact form on your site. This not only helps your customers get in touch with you should they have any questions or concerns, but it’s also a great way to generate user feedback, which can help you decide what is and isn’t working for your small business. The contact form doesn’t need to be overly complicated either, as long as it includes a blank field for users to submit their question or comment, as well as a space for them to include their email address so that you have a way to respond to them. If you have an email marketing newsletter, including a sign-up form on your website is also a great way to help grow your subscriber list and reach your audience on multiple platforms.
Incorporate social media
If you have a website, you likely already know the importance of having an online presence, and social media should be a major part of this, if it’s not already. Like everything else on your website, your social media channels should be easy for your visitors to find. Fortunately, most website builders offer social media features that allow you to easily add links to your social media profiles to your website. You can include social media follow buttons, which allow your visitors to “like” and “follow” your official social media pages, as well as social media share buttons, which allow users to share your website or content on your website with their friends and followers. A great way to grow your following is to use cross-platform promotion, so be sure to link to your official website on all your social media channels as well.
Don’t forget SEO
If you want to improve your website, it means improving its visibility online, which is where search engine optimization (or SEO) comes in to play. After all, if people can’t actually find your website, what’s the point of having one? SEO is important because a higher SEO ranking means your website might appear on the first page of a search engine’s results, whereas a lower SEO ranking could land your website on the second, third or an even lower page of results. Although you can pay search engines like Google and Yahoo! to help boost your SEO ranking through advertisements, there are other tools that several website building services, such as Wix and GoDaddy WebBuilder, provide to help boost your SEO ranking organically. Read our guide to SEO and your website to learn more about SEO and how it affects your website.
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