In this day and age, it is pretty much impossible to run a business without having a digital presence. But your website must represent more than just a warm body. Your site needs to be optimized, functional, and engaging if you want to attract customers.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of websites that miss the mark entirely regarding design, usability, and content. Fortunately, this problem can be fixed.
BrickStreet Marketing offers a free 10-point checklist that analyzes your site and the essential areas that need to be addressed. When doing your own self review, here are some crucial points to consider so you can capitalize on new business opportunities.
Messaging and Call to Actions.
Does your website quickly convey what your company does? Do you have high-impact buttons that say READ MORE, BUY NOW, CLICK HERE, etc., to get people to act? If you do, have these CTA’s been tested that they are all going to the right place?
Responsiveness
From wide desktop displays to mobile devices, make sure the site is fully functional with good usability on all devices. Google penalizes sites for not being mobile friendly.
Usability
Basic usability is achieved through effective navigation, easy to read typefaces, contrasting colors, and by following set web standards. And making sure your images have alt and title tags will not only get you Google points, it will also help visually impaired users.
Contact Information
Accessibility is everything. You should always have a phone number and voicemail in your contact information, even if you don’t have dedicated staff to answer the phone. An email address should also be linked in the header and the footer. If your site has a live chat feature, it will convert customers much higher than sites that do not offer this feature.
Search Engine Optimization
This item is worthy of its own checklist, but for basic analysis, make sure your site has the appropriate title, description, and header tags. It should be optimized for both browsers and humans. It needs to be compelling and readable. Bottom line: Users must be able to easily understand what your page is about, so it can be determined where you should rank in search engine placements (SERPs).
Also, think about what search terms people would use to find you. Are you in the Top 3 in Google for those terms? Contact your web specialist if you are concerned about your web rankings. It might be well worth investing in an active SEO program to increase customer lead generation.
Presence of Analytic Data
If site traffic is not being tracked, it can be hard to tell how well the website is performing. Or, what the most viewed pages are and why they are performing so well. Knowing this information can give you insight into developing more content-relevant pages.
Social Integration
Never miss an opportunity to leverage the power of social media. Integrate all relevant social media platforms within your design. Fast access to social media pages instantly broadens a brand’s reach and helps increase visibility and traffic.
Overall Design
Your website should be visually appealing. The site needs to have enough information to communicate, but not so much that it is overwhelming or confusing. Sites that look good and are modern have a higher conversion rate.
Render Speed\Page Load Time
Nobody wants to wait (yawn) for a slow-loading website. How fast each page loads are directly related to bounce rate and search engine placement (SERP). Google will penalize sites at around 3+ seconds. Caching, reducing image sizes, and removing items that have a weight greater than their overall value will speed up load times. 
Content Analysis
Does your website have content worthy of linking to? Is there a great product or service that contains information on a product that no one else has? By offering a unique selling proposition, you have one of the best ways to attract new customers. Show them how you can solve their problem.
We hope this helps you understand what you need to accomplish to increase your digital presence. If you have any further questions, give us a call. We would be happy to help
optimizing your website • search engine optimization • website usability
