6 Things You Can Do to Make Your Website Better
Ready to take your small business website up a notch? In this post I'll share a few steps you can take immediately.
1. Make your text bite-sized
One of the best things you can do to make your site more effective is to break down your text into short one or two sentence snippets. Keeping text brief makes it easy to read.
Once your text is bite-sized, organize and label it with descriptive titles or headlines to help users quickly scan the page for information that is interesting or relevant to them.
The Knapsack Team left to right: Wesley Tate, Benjamin Manley, Joy Guelzo. Photo credit: Glen+Craft
2. Use real photographs
There certainly are legitimate uses for stock photography (like for blog posts), but if you really want to build trust with your customers, using quality photos of your actual team and/or products will make you appear more legitimate, professional and trustworthy.
Ask around for a good local photographer that specializes in the type of photography that you need (e.g. headshots, products, lifestyle, food) and consider making the investment in some quality photographs.
As a supplement, Unsplash has great quality stock photos, and they’re free. These can be used alongside the work of your photographer to add texture and depth to your site.
3. Make your customer the hero
Most companies make the mistake of talking about themselves too much on their website. While you do need to tell people what you can do for them, writing copy from your customer’s perspective helps them understand what you can do for them more easily.
For more help with this, I highly recommend the 5-minute Marketing Makeover video series and Building a Storybrand book by Donald Miller.
4. Test it on potential customers
Show your website to a few would-be customers and get their feedback. Have a few specific questions ready like:
What is your first impression of this site?
What does this company do?
What problem can this company solve for you?
What makes this company better than other alternatives?
What next step can you take to work with this company?
The purpose is to get honest feedback on how well your website communicates, so don’t ask leading questions. If possible, test it on people who don’t know that you are working on the website. Otherwise they may hold back to avoid offending you.
5. Have a plan for updates
Decide how often you need to revisit your site and check to see that the information is still accurate. It could be as simple as setting a reminder on your calendar to check your website once a month.
Ongoing updates may include publishing blog posts, announcing promotions, adding events, and updating products or services.
If you are looking for outside help with keeping up with your website, we offer an inexpensive membership plan that includes weekly updates and regular recommendations on how to make your site better.
6. Don’t overthink it
Sometimes agonizing over the details of your site too much can keep you from moving forward. Analysis paralysis is real, even for experienced web designers. Just pick one thing to improve, set a deadline, and make it happen.
As you make improvements to your site, it’s important to remember that a website is never really “done.” It’s not a one-time creation that you build and publish and walk away from. It should grow and change with you as your business evolves.
What next step are you taking to improve your website?