In today’s business world, the importance of a strong company website cannot be understated. In many cases, your website will represent a person’s first impression of your business. And, of course, the old adage is true. You don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression – so your website better make your company look good! The thing is, far too many business owners neglect their websites, assuming that once they’re up and running, nothing more is necessary.
This couldn’t be further from the truth. A company website needs to be constantly updated in order to reflect the various goings on of the business. Furthermore, a company website needs to communicate to the extremely large internet-surfing world that the business it represents is moving onward and upward. A website that hasn’t been updated in weeks – even days – doesn’t communicate that at all!
So what can you do to make your business website better? Here are five steps:
1. Make sure that all of your links are active. All too often, business websites incorporate copy that includes links that no longer go anywhere. Not only is directing your website’s visitors to pages that don’t exist not helping you to encourage any sales, it makes your visitors waste their time. There will be times when would-be customers are just one click away from leaving your website. Don’t let that happen to you. Make sure your links work.
2. Include a live chat feature. For the most part, people come to business websites looking for answers. They hope that the websites they visit will be able to resolve problems they may be having via the products and services offered by the company. But what if your visitors have unique questions that your site may not have answers to? Allow them to be asked via a live chat feature so that a representative can answer them right away!
3. Use a simple, yet sleek and professional design. Some people get turned off by visuals that are overly stimulating. People can only take in so much at one time. Be sure to have a clean home page with clearly defined tabs that allow visitors to visit the pages that most interest them. Putting all of your product photos and descriptions on your home page may be too distracting to the average viewer.
4. Take advantage of e-commerce. Do you sell your products directly on your website? If not, you may be missing out on a massive revenue stream. Online shopping is only growing in popularity. And many online users are those who would prefer to do their shopping in the comforts of their own homes. If you don’t yet have shopping cart and checkout features on your site, you may want to look into them right away.
5. Include links to your social media accounts. These days, it’s rare to see a company website with no Facebook or Twitter icons to be found anywhere on them. It’s not just important to interact with people on a regular basis via social media. It’s actually important to show people that you have accounts to begin with! The mere appearance of social media links will convey that your brand is definitely keeping up with the times.
MeloTel offers Website Maintenance Services that are ideal for small business owners who have a small amount of sites in their network and can benefit from around two to 15 hours of work each month. Our highly-skilled team provides a variety of website maintenance services in expeditious time frames. For more information, please don’t hesitate to contact us at 1-888-MELOTEL or use the “Live Chat Support” feature on our website!
