BOOST Website Performance and Generate Traffic in 2020

Are you in the dark about your website’s search performance? Before you check out for the holidays, make sure you know how your site is working for you and get ready to make 2020 the best year yet.

What Should Your Website Do for You? 

Your website shouldn’t be a static thing that just sits there online, acting as a fancy, expensive business card or brochure about your company. Instead of just another piece of marketing collateral, think of your website as another member of your team, one that has certain tasks to perform for you. When you have an employee performing subpar work, you address that issue. It’s the same thing with your website. If it’s underperforming, you take action to improve results.

Therefore, it’s important to understand what your website is supposed to do for you in order to assess how well it’s doing its job. But do you know what your website’s “job description” is? Here are three key things to consider for your website’s search performance review.

Get You Found  

Search performance, which is attracting visitors, is your website’s primary responsibility. If search engines (think: GOOGLE) can’t find you online – and therefore, no one lands on your site – the site can’t carry out the rest of its responsibilities. In short, if you can’t get found, you may as well not even have a website. Getting found requires search engine optimization (SEO), which includes the content and functions of your site that allow it to come up on search engines’ radar.

Among other concepts like link building and responsive technical design, your site’s SEO depends on keyword research and knowing what people are searching for. Being aware of what people are seeking, allows your company to create content on your site that includes the key words that answer their online queries. The right keywords on your site shout out to the search engines, “Yoo-hoo! Over here! I have the answer to what people are looking for!” The search engines get the message, serve your company up in search results, and people find and visit your site.

Keep Visitors on Your Site 

When you perform a search and click on a link, how long do you think it takes you to decide: “Yes, this is what I was looking for,” or “Nope, nope, nope”? Typically, 3-5 seconds is how long a visitor takes to decide if they are staying on the site or hitting the ‘back’ button. This short window of opportunity is what marketers call “The Blink Test,” because it happens in about the blink of an eye. Your search performance matters little if people find your site but then don’t hang around long enough to learn about your amazing business. 

Slow page loading, an unclear headline about what you offer, and difficult navigation are among the issues guaranteed to make your site fail The Blink Test. When visitors arrive on your site, your headline must clearly speak to the value you offer, as most people will not read any further! Ensuring crystal clarity and ease of navigation are musts for helping people want to stay on your site and learn more about you.

Convert Visitors 

It doesn’t matter how many people visit your site if none of them decide to do business with your company. Once you’ve attracted people to your site, the next step is to convert them. Your site can convert a visitor to a lead, someone who may eventually become a client or it can convert a visitor directly to a paying customer. 

Turning your website into a customer-generating machine isn’t even that hard to do. It’s just that most people don’t know where to start. One of the most important things is for your company’s unique value proposition to be crystal clear to visitors as soon as they land on your site.  Remember The Blink Test? You have 0-8 seconds for your compelling headline to strike a cord with visitors, so invest some time in getting this right. 

Here is a short list of other website elements that convert visitors to leads and customers:

• Case studies, testimonials, and social proof
• Addressing pain points and handling objections
• Clear calls-to-action (CTA) – and with button text in the language the visitor would be speaking (e.g., “I want to get started” v. “Order now”)
• Use of product and other videos
• Opportunities for “microconversions” – taking one step, such as subscribing to your email list, signing up for a free trial, completing a contact form, or scheduling a free consultation.

Perform on All Devices

What did you do the last time you visited a website and the page took a few seconds to load? If you were convinced you really need to visit that specific site, you may have waited (likely sighing and rolling your eyes in exasperation). More likely, you did what most of us do: navigated away from the page and looked for another site. If the backend of your website isn’t running full-tilt and loading pages quickly, it’s going to cost you visitors. In fact, you can lose up to 7% of your conversions due to a one second delay in page loading! For your site to really have a healthy search performance, it needs to be findable and useful on both desktop and mobile.

Further, the site has to load – and load quickly – on all the devices visitors use to find you. Did you know that roughly half of all web traffic comes from mobile devices? With internet-ready devices in everyone’s hand, your site must be optimized for mobile viewing, which means it not only loads quickly on mobile, but that it’s attractive and easy to navigate from a smart device. 

Speaking of navigation, to optimize your site for conversion, you need to consider the user experience (UX). Visitors need to be able to quickly navigate to what they are looking for, so make sure your mobile site doesn’t make people work to find what they need. Navigation should be so obvious that visitors can essentially move around the site without thinking!