First impressions really do count. The latest research says you have less than five seconds to impress a potential client with your website, so now is more important than ever to make sure your online presence is as impressive as your SEO.

Despite this, we still come across websites which fail to hit the mark. They are either badly designed, have poor SEO, or even worse cannot be viewed on mobile devices, which now account for 60% of all internet searches.

Get your website up to speed…  and up to date

We all know that the homepage is the most important page on your entire website. After all, if people aren’t impressed with your web design or content they won’t give you a second chance, they will just navigate away.

The page should be a complete advert for your business, making it obvious what it is about and the message should be clear.

It is now also more important than ever to think about what appears ‘above the fold’, which now comes higher up the page, than ever before, as more people are now viewing websites on laptops, tablets and mobile phones.

It might seem obvious but a call to action is also essential. With so many visitors now viewing your site on their mobile a click to call button is your best option. That way people can act immediately which will increase conversions.

In 2017 a fully responsive website should be the norm but if you needed any more reason to make the change, Google is now prioritising mobile responsive sites in in mobile search results.

So a fully functioning desktop site will be penalised if it is not mobile-friendly. A non-responsive site is now one of the biggest criticisms among web users.

It’s all about the visuals

Videos, photographs and infographics are now as important, if not more so than words, not least because they give you great shareable content.

The fact that more and more people than ever are viewing websites on their mobile phones means that they don’t want to read thousands of words – so how can you still get the same message across?

According to research by Animoto four times as many customers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it, especially when it comes to tech as we all like to see how a product works, don’t we?

Google has also confirmed that almost 50% of internet users look for videos related to a product or service before visiting a store.

If you need any more convincing 53% of smartphone users feel more favourable towards companies whose mobile sites or apps provide instructional video content. (Google, 2015) (Source: Hubspot.com)

So when creating blog posts it’s also essential to think about the visual element, would an infographic tell readers the same thing? Could a vlog offer more? Or would a photo gallery be a welcome addition?

Social Media Ads

As many as one-third of the world are now using social media, a number that is expected to rise year on year, so Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn advertising are becoming instrumental in marketing strategy, taking over from the more traditional offerings of TV, newspaper and radio advertising.

90% of all marketers said their social media efforts have generated more exposure for their businesses (Social Media Examiner, 2015).

While 83% of all marketers revealed that they are now actively pursuing social media marketing initiatives. (Aberdeen, 2016).

But it’s not as simple as the older approaches of buying space, getting artwork created and waiting for the calls/website hits to happen.

Social Media marketing is an ongoing task or maybe even an art as changes in algorithms means you need to be ready to adapt and adopt a new approach at any given moment.

Recent changes to algorithms, in particular on Facebook, means you will have seen a huge drop in your organic reach in recent months. This is to encourage businesses to spend on adverts just to reach their already loyal followers let alone any new ones, which is why more business are opting to invest in such adverts.

Facebook currently has the highest conversion rate for all social media e-commerce traffic at just under 2%.

So it’s no surprise that according to research by emarketer 35.4% of total display advertising spending in the U.S.-  $11.93 billion is with Facebook.

They also found that more than 95% of social media managers believe Facebook offers the best return.

SEO

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is still seen by many as a black art.  Which is why some businesses are still paying extortionate fees to SEO ‘experts’ to get their website ranking top on Google.

But packing your pages with keywords and spending a fortune on Google Adwords is now no longer enough. Although the latter will certainly help.

One of the most important factors is regularly updating your content which will help work towards improving your website authority and ultimately your ranking.

Good content is about providing value to your reader that will help with whatever pain point they may be experiencing or something they may genuinely find interesting.

Researching your keywords and naturally integrating them into content, meta tags and titles, is still important however the process should be looked upon as a more holistic approach, always with the goal of delivering valuable and useful content.

Conclusion

Adwords, organic ranking and social media are all key determining factors in successfully getting more exposure and leads from your website.  It is important to allow time for each of these depending on our objectives or to make things even easier, give us a call and let us do the hard work for you.

Webthinking are a Wirral based web design company specialising in bespoke web design, web development, website optimisation and eCommerce. Contact us on 0800 644 2640 see how we can help your business.