33 Ways to Improve Your Website
Most of us wish life were simple (or at least simpler). Anyone who’s grappled with their tax return or a Gantt chart will understand where we're coming from. And websites and digital marketing can be just as complex.
So, we thought we'd give you a simple list of things you can do to improve your website. (Doesn’t everyone need more things to do?)
eCommerce Websites
- Make sure your product is no more than between 3 and 4 clicks from the Home Page
- Create a specific Sale category for all the products you want on Sale
- Put a “Sale” ‘banner’ on items which are in a Sale even if they are not listed in the Sale category
- Offer different ways to sort your products; price, colour, size, most recently viewed, etc.
- Offer a “View all” facility for the visitor who doesn’t want to wade through pages of products
- Use offers (3 for 2, Buy One Get One Free, Cheapest of 3 Free, etc.)
- Make sure you have related products listed against every product on your site
- Test video demonstrations of your products
- Run split-tested pages which sell your products at different prices (You can test: a reduced price, your normal price and an increased price.)
- If you’re selling below RRP show the saving in pounds and as a percentage
- Ask for your customer’s email address at the beginning of the checkout process
- Send an email to anyone who dropped out of the basket asking them to;
- Try again
- Consider an alternative product
- Once you’ve got yourself a customer make sure you keep emailing them!
- Use any appropriate logos to show that your website offers a safe shopping experience
- Offer upsells at the basket (e.g. batteries for toys or dishwasher powder for dishwashers, etc.)
- Use vouchers (10%, £5.00 off, Free Delivery, etc.)
- Offer multiple payment methods (VISA, MasterCard, PayPal, Amazon, etc.)
- Don't force customers to "Register" during the checkout process, offer a Guest facility.
- Use Google Shopping to show a picture of your products on Google's search results.
Lead Generation Websites
- Offer a free report in exchange for your visitor’s email address
- Test other giveaways like white papers, videos, consultancy time, eBooks, etc.
- Follow up your emails with more emails!
- Ask for additional contact information in your enquiry forms like; telephone number, postal address and contact your prospect using these approaches
- Use a telephone number that is unique to your website so you can track how many calls the website generates
- Consider using the above eCommerce techniques for your services (e.g. related services or offering upsells)
- Use Live Chat or Video Ask to help create a relationship with the visitor.
Improve Your Copy
- Test different opening titles/headlines
- Test different font colours
- Emphasise certain words with bold or italics (but never an underline as your visitor could confuse it with a hyperlink!)
- Break up your web pages with headings
- Use bullets and numbers
- Shorten your paragraphs and sentences
- Make sure your copy is easy to read by running it through this Readability Index Calculator. You’re looking for a Flesch-Kincaid Grade level of about 7 and a Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score of anything over 60
Author: Jed Wylie
Published by digitalROAR