Tag: web design

Optimizing Your Websites and Landing Pages Will Increase Conversions

Nancy Boisvert Newsletter , , , , , , , ,
increase conversions with optimization

Increase your conversions by simply optimizing your website and landing pages.

It might surprise you to know that a lot of business owners don’t optimize their websites.

And when we talk about optimization, we are not just talking about the speed of your website, although that is a big factor when it comes to the impatience of today’s web surfer.

In fact, everything on websites and landing pages can be optimized and refined so that they will increase conversions.

Speed should be the first thing that you look at, although it is probably the easiest thing to fix if there is a problem. You’ve got 3-6 seconds before a user will think there is something wrong with the page, or maybe that the page is down. You probably understand this if you are looking for something and have landed on a slow loading page before.
Read more

What You Should Know About the Latest Website Design Trends

Nancy Boisvert Newsletter , , , , ,
latest website design trends

Are you aware of the latest website design trends?

If you own a website, or even several websites, it’s a good idea you know and understand the design changes that have been happening over the last couple of years.

We’re talking about how a change in technology, and change in how people use your website, are directly affecting shifts in design.

Website design as it was a few years ago, has changed to meet a whole new type of user, mostly the mobile device user. In fact, mobile devices have changed the way many big company websites are designed, such as Apple and Microsoft, who made it far easier for their customers to navigate and find what they are looking for.

Many design changes seem to have been driven by mobile devices. In other words, these changes had to take place for mobile users to be able to navigate websites on small screens. If you want to see what we mean, find an old online website that isn’t designed for mobile use, and try to navigate it. If it has lots of menu items, and even menu dropdowns, you will find it unfriendly as you try to see those tiny buttons and find what you are looking for.
Read more

Your Business Website Should Be Fully Optimized For The User Experience

Nancy Boisvert Newsletter , , , , , , , ,
your users experience

How’s your users experience?

If your company or business website hasn’t been updated, or there are no plans to update it, you should change that strategy.

User behavior is continuously evolving, and one of the most significant changes is that more people are using their smartphone devices every day.

If you have ever used your phone to browse websites online, you may have noticed that some websites are nearly impossible to read or navigate. The reason for this is because most websites are built from a perspective that someone on a computer will visit the site. The way users access a website has already changed drastically.

But design evolution isn’t only about having your website viewable on a mobile device. User optimization encompasses a lot of different factors. Some changes that have happened over the past couple of years include websites having fewer menu options, getting rid of the menu grid or ‘hamburger’ as it’s come to be known, getting rid of bad stock images, and moving the website to a more minimalistic design.

The majority of these changes came from designers and developers constantly redesigning and changing UX (user experience) elements to see how those new designs and changes worked. Big companies such as IKEA have moved to a more minimal design with fewer menu options making it easier for their visitors to quickly find what they need. But this optimization shouldn’t end there.

The future will likely bring more design trends making it easier for visitors to get what they are looking for quickly. After all, a good user experience drives conversions.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

If you like the information you are receiving, please share this post.

8 Reasons To Use Google Analytics for Your Website

Nancy Boisvert Newsletter , , , , , , ,
reasons to use google analytics

Here’s 8 reasons to use Google analytics!

As business owners, we must ensure that our marketing efforts are worthwhile.

We need to make sure that our website’s design and structure is at optimal levels to maximize our marketing campaigns.

Having someone on your team that can analyze your website traffic data will help ensure that your efforts are worth every little bit of time and money you spend on marketing.

Installing Google Analytics makes acquiring this information easier than ever. Understanding this information will help you strategize and improve your marketing efforts.

Here are 8 simple ways to use Google Analytics to advance your business to next level:

1. Identify the Sources of Your Traffic

Use analytics to track the traffic on your website. This will help you understand what sources send the most traffic to your business.

2. Determine the Path that Leads to Conversions

Determine what pages are driving conversions for your business. Conversions could be making a sale, the download of a white paper, a filled out contact form on your website or one of many other actions that positively impact your business.

The quality of your traffic relies on if you’re bringing the right buyer personas to your website who are genuinely interested in your company’s offerings.

3. Understand Which Relevant Keywords Drive Traffic

Analytics informs you how your business is ranking for key search queries.

Ranking highly for the most important long-tail keyword phrases related to your business can drive quality visitors to your website on a regular basis, which is why marketing around these search phrases is essential for your business.

4. Understand Time on Site

Start by understanding how engaged your visitors are by using the engagement report to better understand their time on site.

The reason why this is so important is that the longer someone is on your website, the more likely they’ll perform an action with your business whether that’s a download, completing a transaction, etc.

5. View Multi-Channel Funnels to Locate Understand a Visitor’s Path

The multi-channel funnels report in Google Analytics is one of the most important to monitor. It provides an overview of the most common paths to conversions. Take a look at which funnels are driving the most activity for your business and try to spur more movement across these channels.

6. Know Which Device Users Drive Results

Improve the quality of your ongoing traffic by analyzing and catering to where your traffic is coming from –desktop, mobile or tablet devices.

7. New vs. Returning Visitors

This report is important to monitor regularly to see if your existing audience is continually returning to your website, while also informing your business of your audience growth over time as seen through new visitors.

Ideally, there should be a healthy balance of both new visitors and returning visitors to inform the quality of your website.

8. Manage Your Backlinks

This can help your business understand what websites are linking to your site, which is a major factor that Google and the other search engines take into consideration when ranking your website and driving traffic to your business.

Your backlink profile is a crucial factor to help ensure that only quality websites are linking to your business and that you’re building trust with your customers and the search engines.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

If you like the information you are receiving, please share this post.

Why a Website Audit is Necessary

Nancy Boisvert Newsletter , , , ,
regular website audit

You need to do a website audit – regularly!

Your website is your online shop window. It is the first impression you are giving to your new visitor regarding the credibility of your business. If a customer cannot navigate your website to find what they are looking for, they will have no faith in buying from you. You should want it to provide a good experience for your customers. Does it function correctly? Is anything broken? Have you checked lately?

Start with these four points:

1. What is your site speed? How long does it take for your website to load? If it takes too long, you may have just lost multiple visitors. If it’s not as quick as your competitors, you have just made a bad first impression.

2. Does the content on your site accurately describe what you are selling? This is not only important for your site visitors; even before anyone else sees it, Google has to value your website to ‘rank’ your business site in the search results.

3. Does your site work properly on mobile devices? Have you checked? If not, you are losing a lot of potential customers interested in your services.

4. Are parts of your site broken? Obsolete? What effect are these broken bits having on the overall performance of your site?

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

If you like the information you are receiving, please share this post.

Does Your Website Have These Important Design Elements?

Nancy Boisvert Newsletter , , , ,
website design elements

Need some quick tips on important design elements for your website?

There’s been a lot of testing and research done over the past couple of years, and it’s no surprise that more people are using mobile devices to find products or services. The one thing that may or may not come as a surprise is that many businesses haven’t adapted to these changes, or even tested their website. Prioritizing user experience should be the first thing you or your website designer should do.

Any website needs to have design elements that make the website easily seen, and also make it easy to navigate should be on the top of this list. Many websites are starting to get rid of images because they take too long for mobile devices to load, if too many are used. However, if you do use images, they should be scaled down, and the images should use text, such as a card menu seen on Microsoft homepage. This one easy design element shows people what they are looking for quickly, and describes it easily.

And if you’re doing to use video or animation, then fast-loading cinemagraphs are the way to go for mobile devices. These small half-photo, half-animated clips, are quite popular, and load quickly. Make sure that your copy is relevant to the visitor quickly depending on their query, and what got them to your website in the first place. Give a quick big picture of what your site is all about, and what you offer the minute the customer gets there. Realize they may be on a mobile device, and test it, or have your website designer continually test and improve the experience.

Make your site easy to navigate, create different designs for the different sections, but use a consistent theme. Use eye-catching transitions from section to section to keep the user interested. And make sure the font for your copy can be easily seen. Visitors still do the quick scan, so if they quickly scan, make sure you grab their attention quickly. Use custom visual and iconography, or images and symbols, that tells your brand story and shows some personality of who and what your business is about.

All of these design trends are based on statistics. And with the statistics comes the realization that effective website design that makes life easier for users when they visit your site, should be the main goal of you and your website designer. Your competitors are optimizing their websites, if you don’t optimize your site, then you will be left behind.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

If you like the information you are receiving, please share this post.

Optimize Your Websites and Landing Pages And Increase Conversions

Nancy Boisvert Newsletter , , , , , , ,
optimization

Don’t underestimate the value of optimizing your website and landing pages.

It might surprise you to know that a lot of business owners don’t optimize their websites.

And when we talk about optimization, we are not just talking about the speed of your website, although that is a big factor when it comes to the impatience of today’s web surfer.

In fact, everything on websites and landing pages can be optimized and refined so that they will increase conversions.

Speed should be the first thing that you look at, although it is probably the easiest thing to fix if there is a problem. You’ve got 3-6 seconds before a user will think there is something wrong with the page, or maybe that the page is down. You probably understand this if you are looking for something and have landed on a slow loading page before.

The next thing to take into consideration with speed is the headline or the first thing that a visitor sees when they hit the website or landing page. Another 0-8 seconds and if you don’t have the right headline, that potential customer is gone and searching somewhere else. Split testing headlines should be on top of your list.

You should always be testing, and if you find a winner, you don’t stop there. Website owners that get twice the sales are always optimizing headlines and copy.

Other things that you can do is take a look at your copy or your sales pitch. Customizing your sales pitch can increase conversions because it gives your visitor a more personalized experience. Make sure you are offering unique value to that potential customer. Offer something of value right up front, don’t waste the visitors time. Time is valuable and many people have a shortage of time and don’t want to waste time looking for what they need.

Offering something for free is another way to optimize for conversions, especially if you are getting their email in the process. There is almost no better way to get someone interested in what they are looking for than to offer them part of the solution for free, and then ask them what email you can send their free information to. Make that offer limited so they realize it’s not going to be around forever.

Optimization could also include features such as live chat. Live chat is great because if a customer doesn’t see something, and they see a chat box, they are more likely to try and ask about what they are looking for using a chat feature.

Exit overlays should be your last ditch effort to get the customers attention. Again, by telling a potential customer something like ‘Wait, don’t leave empty-handed, let us give you ‘insert product name’ for free just for visiting. You would be surprised how many conversions this will likely bring you.

This is just a small sample of some of the things you can do to optimize your website and landing pages for increased conversions.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

If you like the information you are receiving, please share this post.

Your Business Website Is The Foundation For Your Digital Marketing

Nancy Boisvert Newsletter , , , , , , ,
foundation for your digital marketing

Build a foundation for your digital marketing.

Any smart online digital marketer will tell you that your website is the most important aspect of any successful online business. And any successful website covers every angle when it comes to the customer’s journey on finding exactly what they need, whether that be a product or service that the business is offering. Do it wrong, and that customer will go to another website where that business is doing it right.

So what are the things that every successful digital marketing hub has? Well for starters, this is the place where the business begins to build its’ brand and reputation. And everything that involves the brand should be here such the core message or mission statement of the company, the source of the business information including the location, the management, the employees, and the expertise of the business team that is building this brand.

Of course, your business might be different, and you may have a small team offering products or services. Or it may be just you offering a product.

In this case, you would build up on why your product is better, or where your service is better than ‘company-x.’ Building your brand all starts here on your web property.

But this is just the beginning of having a solid foundation for your ‘digital marketing hub’. A good way to look at this is from a customer or visitor standpoint. Does your website have everything that the customer needs including answering questions about the product or service that you offer?

Do you have complete product or service guides online, and are those guides being regularly updated? And do you have product guides and tutorials setup for buying customers?

Many online businesses have different products or offer different services, and those could include customer education, or supplying how-to guides.

Having lead generation is another important aspect along with being able to find that business on social networks. This is important because many businesses use these social networks like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to keep their customer base updated on new products or services that the company offers. And there is so much more.

If after reading all this, you must feel overwhelmed, don’t worry. We can guide you through the process of making sure your website is fully utilized for your business, and it’s optimized to increase conversions.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

If you like the information you are receiving, please share this post.

Improve Your Web Design Using These 9 Tips

Nancy Boisvert Newsletter , , , , , ,
tips to improve your web design

Are you wondering what makes an effective web design?

Is it the visual elements, or is it the functionality?

Truth be told it is a combination of both. As Steve Jobs once said, “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

Websites with great usability and function tend to perform better on Google than those just with beautiful design. We want to show you 10 ways to improve your existing website to ensure you are getting the most bang for your buck.

Check out these nine tips to improve your web design.

Purpose and Function

An exceptional website has a clear purpose, and the function is evident and intuitive. The design of every element and how they come together as a whole should be derived from the purpose and function of the website.

Communication and Interaction

Internet users want information quickly. To ensure you are providing lightning-fast information, you should be clear and concise, using headlines, and subtitles to provide valuable information. Links to the email address or contact form, live chat, and feedback form should also be easily accessible.

Intuitive Navigation

Navigation is a core element in which your website is built upon. The navigation should make sense to your visitors whatever path they wish to take. Navigating from point A to C based on the customer’s journey should flow smoothly without any barriers or friction. Ensure your customers can find the information they are looking for within 3 clicks or less.

Design Consistency

Each design element should match throughout the entire website. This means your headlines, colors, and so forth should all have the same look and feel. Take the time to plan out every detail to ensure your message is consistent throughout.

F-Pattern design & Grid-Based Layout

Ensure your page elements are arranged in a way that is natural for the eye. Studies have shown that people view pages in an “F” shaped pattern. Arrange your content based on a grid to create content that is both aligned and balanced.

Typography and Readability

The text is one of the most vital elements to a website, providing users with necessary information, and providing content for SEO. Create visually engaging type by using attractive and readable typefaces.

Color palette and imagery

Use a well thought out color pallet to enhance your user’s experience. Use contrasting colors for the background and text, while implementing vibrant colors for buttons and headlines to draw the user’s attention.

Mobile-friendliness

The number of devices that users are viewing websites from has increased dramatically over the past few years. Ensure your website is built with a responsive layout.

Loading speed

Take the time to ensure your website is loading at lightning speed. User’s hate when it takes more than just a few seconds to load a page.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

If you like the information you are receiving, please share this post.

Get More Customers! Map Your Website Out Along The Customer’s Journey

Nancy Boisvert Newsletter , , , , ,
customers journey

How have you mapped out your website?

Your Customer’s Journey goes through these stages: Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action. There’s no telling how long they stay in one stage before jumping to the next. Sometimes the progress takes months, and others the jump is almost immediate.

Many websites concentrate on the ‘Awareness’ and ‘Interest’ stage without signals toward a purchase while others focus on the ‘Action’ stage without providing sufficient information.

Does your website’s navigation and content address all of the needs of your potential customers in every step of their journey?

Navigational cues such as menu buttons, bread crumbs, overview of next steps, suggested readings, and calls-to-action must guide your visitors from whatever buying stage they are in and on whatever page and content they are currently on to the next logical and intuitive step.

This strategy requires a deep understanding of your customer, what they need and how you meet that need. This means knowing what information in certain media formats they need to absorb to learn more about your offerings in a way that will resonate with their motivation to buy. This strategy also requires getting rid of all possible barriers to buying, making the actual purchase process as smooth and satisfying as possible.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

If you like the information you are receiving, please share this post.

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
LinkedIn