7 Ways to Get Your Website Into Shape for 2021

If your company’s website isn’t getting the traffic you expected – and need – we’ve got a seven-point plan for shaping up the website in 2021. If you don’t have a good website designer on-staff, X-Factor stands ready to help you with the following cyber resolutions.

Simplify Content

When’s the last time you read every word on a website? We’re guessing the answer is “Never”.  So, instead of making visitors to your site sort through the mire to get to the message – simplify. Remove anything that is not absolutely necessary. Remember that visitors accustomed to abbreviated text messages and 280 character tweets have short attention spans. They don’t read websites. They scan them. So, if you want to catch visitors on the fly, stick to short bursts of content. Use bullets. Summarize. By reducing the noise level of your site, you’ll make the remaining content stand out.

Add Updated News

Are you regularly producing press releases for your business? Press releases are the most direct, economical way to gain credibility and capture the loyalty of customers, employees, investors and suppliers. To reap the maximum benefit from your releases, they should be optimized for search engines. That way, when you post a release on your site, search engine crawlers will find the content, index it and rank it based on keywords found in the release. Remember, old news is not good news. Site visitors finding nothing but months-old news will think one of two things -either the company has gone out of business or the company doesn’t care enough to bother keeping the site current.

Be Mobile-friendly

According to Google, more than 60% of online searches are done through a mobile device. The quickest way to antagonize these searchers is to expect them to cope with a big-screen site on a small-screen device. Is your site readable and functional on a tablet or smartphone? Is it as easy to navigate with a finger as with a mouse? The mobile-device trend is not going away, so it’s up to you to make your website mobile-friendly. With RWD (responsive web design), every page will be fully adjustable and adaptable. Make sure visitors find your site to be a pleasure instead of a project.

Get a Makeover

Many customers and potential customers get their first impression of your business from your website. Outdated websites perform poorly when it comes to converting site visitors into paying customers. Web design trends are constantly changing, and websites need new imagery, new pages and new messaging if it is to keep up with competitors. That’s why your website should be redesigned every three or four years. Remember, you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Website Maintenance

Don’t wait for spring to clean up your website. Keep a constant lookout for broken links, outdated copy and anything else that makes your site look like yesterday’s news. A visitor who clicks on a link only to land somewhere else is not going to keep trying. Copy and content that did the job last year (or last month) may not do the job now. Update and edit if it’s still relevant. Delete if it isn’t. You can keep your site fresh with new content, such as press releases, industry resources, staff changes or profiles. The more content you have, the more content there will be for searchers to find. But it needs to be relevant and it needs to be current. Investing in a website maintenance program for 2021 is a great way to stay on top of needed changes.

Get Analytical

Is anybody out there? Is so, what are they doing out there? You can find out with Google analytics. If you don’t already have this valuable free tool in place, get it now. It will answer the questions about who’s viewing your website and what they’re most interested in. Review the supplied data at least once every quarter. When you know which pages your audience is spending time on and which pages are being ignored, you’ll have a road map for future website changes.

Make Every Word Count

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a way to give your website the best chance to be located in an online search. But optimizing your site with keywords most likely to be targeted in a search is only half the process. To find out what’s working and what isn’t, you need to check your Google rankings. Not ranking on page one for important product-related keywords? It may be time to refresh your on-site SEO including keywords, meta tags, URLs and alt tags.

For more information in getting your website in shape in 2021, contact the marketing experts at X-Factor Web Marketing.