Your website might be your only chance to impress a potential customer so it’s essential that it’s the best that it can be. Here’s how to make your website stand out from the crowd.
How To Do It
With over 1 billion websites on the internet and more going up every day, standing out from the crowd can be a challenge. A well-built website, however, can provide better analytics, more visitors, and higher revenues, all of which are important to a small business. Here are some ways to make your website stand out from your competition.
Think Like Your Customer - Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and take a look at your website. What do you think? Are you impressed or are you underwhelmed? Anything that doesn’t impress you isn’t going to impress visitors so make changes until your website is something you’re proud of.
- First Things First - Don’t assume that visitors will go any further than the first thing they see when they land on your page. Whatever is the most important thing for them to see should be the first thing they see because it might be the only thing they see.
- Keep It Simple - Whatever it is you want people to do, whether it’s buying something, answering something, or reading something, it should be as easy as possible for them to do it. Don’t give visitors any reason not to do what you want them to do. The harder it is to complete the desired action the less likely people are to do it.
- Stay Fresh - Visitors don’t want outdated or irrelevant information so don’t just set it and forget it. Make sure to keep your content fresh and updated at all times. Customers will notice and appreciate your effort.
- Speed Matters - Don’t make people wait. If visitors have to wait too long for your site to load they’re likely to navigate away and may never come back. Test your site’s load time and if it’s taking too long make changes so that it will load faster. It doesn’t matter how great your site is if no one ever sees it.
- Get Ranked - Think about when you search for something online. Do you ever go past the first page or even the first few results? That’s why getting ranked matters. Search engine automation or SEO is the way you improve your ranking and it’s something you need to do.
- Be Mobile Friendly - The majority of internet users do it with mobile devices. This means that if you want people to use your site it needs to be mobile-friendly. To see how your site looks pull it up on your mobile device and change anything that doesn’t look or perform how it should.
- Offer Value - Give your visitors what they want. Once you’ve done all the work to get somebody to actually visit your site you don’t want them showing up and being disappointed with what they find. They’ll probably never come back and may even tell others about their negative experience.
- Tell Your Story - Letting people know who you are and what makes you unique can increase interest and boost confidence in what you do. Most websites have an “about us” page but another way to make your website stand out from the competition is by making a separate page with detailed biographies of you and your staff members that includes biographies with details of educational and professional qualifications along with good pictures.
- More Than Words - People like visuals more than text. Images are easier to process and give users a better experience. All text looks pretty much the same, no matter its content. Having high-quality images and videos on your website can make you unique, and helps make an impression that visitors will appreciate.
- Check Out The Competition - Do a search for whatever your product or service is and take a look at the websites that rank the best. You don’t have to copy what they do but they rank well for a reason and it doesn’t hurt to figure out why that is and employ some of the same tactics.
Having a website that stands out from the crowd can make the difference between success and failure so if you aren’t comfortable with your ability to do it yourself or don’t have the time to do it right your best bet is to hire a professional.
If you want help making your website stand out the Ellipsis Website Program is a great place to start.
Tags: website, small business