Score More Customers With Your Website With These 4 Tips With more and more people relying on their smartphones, follow these tips to make your homepage more efficient.
By Deborah Mitchell Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
With more and more people relying on their mobile devices to shop, it's a great time to turn your business website traffic into potential dollars.
Neil Patel from KISSmetrics, a website analytics service that measures data collection, states that 78 percent of mobile searches for local business information results in a purchase.
Related: Want a New Website? You May Have to Put in a Lot of Work to Get One.
So it might be time to update your old site or make sure your new site is up to par. Web designer Nay Ayache outlined a few strategic steps to keep your website ready for all those mobile eyes. Here are four ways to make your business website more efficient in an online-driven world:
1. Choose a clean web design.
As a business, your goal is to have a high conversion rate and establish contact with potential customers. Design is an important part of any website, but not all online portals are created equally.
You can create an amazing website without letting form overshadow function, so avoid unnecessary items that will make it harder for your audience to get what they need, such as banners on the front page or long paragraphs on your contact page. Avoid placing important information in graphics and on pictures, since search engines can't read them.
If you must use banners to highlight your content, include keywords in the picture's title, alternative title and caption. If Google can't index information, it might as well not exist.
2. Be mobile ready.
You may have noticed that the past year has seen an explosion of flat logos. This minimalist design is perfect for targeting mobile device visitors, as intricate designs may not look as great on a small screen as they do on a laptop. If your visitors have to repeatedly pinch their screens to access information, chances are they won't visit again, and will move on to your competitor's website.
The smartphone craze has forced businesses to now create responsive websites that automatically recognize screen resolution and resize the content to fit smaller screens. The website update to a mobile-friendly site may be costly, so comparison shop for a graphic designer who can work within your budget.
Related: What You Need to Know About Google's Recent 'Phantom' Update
3. Work on search-engine optimization.
You may think that no one knows your business as well as you do, but SEO specialists may beg to differ. From the broadest industries to the tiniest niche, search-result-page positioning is determined first and foremost by how people look for online content and how they react to it.
Using keyword-rich content is important. Don't simply rely on yourself to find those keywords. Google AdWords offers a great service that allows you to find all the keywords your audience is using to describe and look for your business. The service also gives you traffic estimates to help you make projections based on how well they will do over a certain period of time.
Registering your business with Google Places does wonders for SEO. Not only does it propel your website to the top of the search results, your business will also appear as a pin on the map along with all your information, including your website. This adds credibility to your business and may be a decisive factor for clients who wish to get information on the fly.
4. Stay ahead of your audience's needs.
Keep your website up to date by making sure that promotions, specials and product inventory are always current. Contact information, particularly your phone number, should be placed on the front page as well as a dedicated page easily accessible through the navigation bar. And finally, you can easily assist your potential clients with directions with a Google map embedded on the homepage, along with parking instructions.
