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Having been in website design and development for nearly 20 years in Ōrewa, Jason Carr of Fuel Design has seen websites that work, and some that don’t. Here are his tips for a business website to be proud of:
• Choose the right platform
Believe it or not there are a lot of website platforms other than WordPress or Shopify. Although these systems may be adequate for your business, have you considered alternatives? There are platforms that have email marketing and Customer Journeys built-in, Xero/MYOB and local courier integration – and amazing Google PageSpeed Insights results.
• Speed counts
Both search engines and visitors want your website to be fast. Google puts a big emphasis on the Mobile PageSpeed these days as, believe it or not, 75 percent or more of your website visitors may be using a mobile device. You can test your website speeds (and more) by searching for ‘Google PageSpeed Insights’ and enter your website address to get a score on mobile and desktop.
• The write approach
Most businesses we speak to really dislike the idea of writing blogs and other articles for their site. But the ones who do it well often reap the rewards, both in improved Google results and more traffic from their social media. Blogs also help to position your brand well with existing customers – turning them into repeat customers over time with increased brand loyalty.
• Turning the marketing ‘wheel’
Many people have well designed websites and are sending people to their social media accounts (like Facebook business pages) and losing traffic, when it should often be the other way around. Your social media channels should be sending people to read your blogs and other interesting information on your website – where you have your services, prices, testimonials, case-studies, articles, maybe online shop and most definitely a strong call-to-action to get in touch or to make a product enquiry or purchase.
• DIY or professional?
If you’re not an expert website designer, should you even be creating your own businesses website? In NZ we all like to have a go and save money, but there is the potential that the wrong choices could damage your brand and online sales. There’s a lot more to a website than meets the eye. Pretty pictures will get you so far, but in a competitive world, you need to ensure your website is as good as possible, so it is worth considering whether to give it a go yourself, or bring in a professional.
