Zimbabwe Web Design is a service of Angel & Walt Hosting. 0242-251092, 08677 007480, 0772 957786, 0732 957786
7 important website elements to a good website

7 important website elements to a good website

Living in the digital world, a website is now a necessity for a business, whether big or small. If you have a business and don’t have a website, you are probably losing a number of great opportunities for your business. Your website is a great opportunity for your business to market itself online. The foundation of success for any website or internet business is traffic. Without website traffic there is no-one to visit your website. Your web has a far wider reach than any other form of advertising. However for your website to have a wide range of traffic they are important elements you need to put into consideration for your website to be visible. The following article will guide you through.

 

1. User friendly website navigation

A clear navigation, makes visitors stay and have a good experience, which ultimately leads to more business for you.
Having a strong Internet presence is necessary. You want to grow and attract new customers, but if your site is not user-friendly then you are doing business more harm than good. It is so important that your website is easy to navigate through. The easier your site is to navigate through, the more time a user will spend on your website, which in turn means your bounce rate will decrease.

 

2. Excellent visual design

Visual appeal is what meets the eye. It’s the colors, shapes, pictures, fonts, white space, and overall visual balance of a design. Whether a website appeals to us affects how we perceive it, how we use it, and how we remember it. Excellent visual design helps your website to fulfill the following objectives:

i) Attract attention

Visual design can – more than anything – attract attention. This is key to getting visitors engaged with your website. Customers like to look at pretty things and if they have the choice, they always prefer an attractive design or image over an ugly or neutral one. The bright, creative artworks immediately draw the user’s attention while adding both energy and aesthetic appeal to what is usually considered as uninteresting.

ii) Create a first impression

Our first impression when meeting someone face-to-face can affect our relationship with them in the long term. It affects whether or not we like someone, if we think we can trust them, and if we intend to meet that person again. Basically, within only a few seconds – maybe minutes, we can decide if we enjoy spending time with someone or not.

iii) Build relationships

Excellent visual design can also build relationships. If customers can identify your website, you are a huge step closer to building a long-term relationship with them – which is, the main goal of creating a website as a business.

 

3. Easy and informative content

Good content is what sets your website apart from the masses and delivers the right message into the hearts and minds of your customers. The success of your website is determined primarily by its content. The content of your website should always begin with proper market research. Your taglines must deliver a clear value proposition and include an effective call to action. The key to a successful website is having easy, informative and keyword-rich content that delivers the right message with power and conviction. Content on your website should target your audience, engage them and persuade them to take action.

 

4. Clear and visible call to action

A call to action is a prompt on a website that tells the user to take some specified action. It is typically written as a command, such as ‘Sign Up’ or ‘Buy Now’ and generally takes the form of a button or hyperlink. Without a clear call to action the user may not know the next steps to take to purchase a product or sign up for a newsletter and is likely to leave the site without accomplishing their task. Call to action should be designed in the way that visitors during the tour to your website in order to seek information should know more about the product and services you offer simultaneously.

 

5. Detailed ‘about us’ on who you are

The content is what people visit your website for/or social media profiles, the first place they go is your landing page. When a website visitor decides to go to the about us page, he or she is on a fact-finding mission, as well as looking for the “story” of your business. If your website merely speaks about your products and/or services, you are selling it short.

Your about us page is an excellent way to communicate to your visitors who you are and to give them the confidence to understand that you and your business possess the skills and experience that they need to be able to solve their particular problems. Your about us page should answer the following questions:

  • Who are we?
  • Why should you choose us over someone else?
  • What do we do?
  • When did we start?
  • How do we do it?

It is in this about us page that you include testimonies so that your website visitors will get to trust your services and products. There for it is of vital importance to include a detailed about us page that describes who you are to your website visitors.

 

6. Responsive web design

Responsive web design creates a system for a single site to react to the size of a user’s device with one content source. A responsive website has a fluid and flexible layout which adjusts according to screen size. Responsive Web Design is important because it offers an optimized browsing experience, your website will look great and work well on a desktop (or laptop), a tablet, and a mobile phone’s browser.  Website responsiveness is also a great way to refine the content on your site, making sure that those using a mobile device are only seeing the most essential information.

 

7. Contact information

Contact information is also another special element that should be included when creating a website. Having contact details on your website is a must because as a professional company why would you hide your contact details on your website. However, there is low chance that someone will go ahead with a company if one doesn’t feel he/she can trust your website. Similarly, if someone doesn’t trust a company, he will hesitate to purchase its products. Therefore, having your phone number on display could greatly increase your conversion rate.

 

Conclusion

In conclusion, living in the digital world, a website is now a necessity for a business, big or small. If you have a business and don’t have a website, you are probably losing a number of great opportunities for your business. Therefore they are important elements that a web designer must consider when creating a website. These include a user friendly website navigation, excellent visual design and other elements stated in the article.

 

Submit your web design project request

Building a website for your business in Zimbabwe

Building a website for your business in Zimbabwe

Building a website for your business is no small task. Yet more often than not i see business people in Zimbabwe simply assign this task to a web designer and forget about it. Would you assign an outsider to run your business and just assume that they are doing it properly? It’s the same for a website. You may not know programming language or how to code but you know your business better than anyone else.

Only you know your customers and their needs. You are the expert when it comes to your products and service offerings. The process of building your website should be a joint venture between you the business owner and the web designer or programmer.

Never approach the task of building your website as a small one. A website is a big deal for your business. There is more to a website than just the colors, design and look. A website is business tool and when you hire someone to build it you want to make sure they do it right and in such a way that it helps your business grow.

Your website is an extension of your physical business

Why is a website project such a big deal? Put simply, because your website is a replica of your business online. Think about everything that your business does. You do marketing, sales, production, customer service and customer support. Your website is supposed to do these very same things, the only difference is that it’s being done online. This is one of the biggest failures i see Zimbabwean businesses make almost every-time.

Having a website is supposed to eliminate the need for a customer to travel to your shop or offices. If you have a website and i still need to visit you physically then what’s the point of having it anyway? Treat your website as your physical business. Let it not fail to serve customers who have visited it. Would you let customers walk away from your offices without doing everything you can to serve them? Don’t let your website do that.

Treat your website as an employee

Most business people are willing to pay $400 or more every month as a salary for their employees. When it comes to their website they only want to pay $100 once off. This is where most websites fail- before they are even built. Your website is important.

This one website can serve as your marketing representative, attracting lots of people and website traffic. It acts as your salesperson showing visitors your products and orienting them on your services. Your website also acts as your cashier, accepting payments for what you offer and invoicing clients straight to their inboxes. It’s your customer support representative, it’s your PR guy and much more.

Address the needs of your target customers

When people visit your website it’s not because they have nothing to do. They are on your website because they have certain needs they believe you can meet. When you build your website keep this in mind. We are building this website for our customers. They must find it easy to use, they must understand the language you use and feel comfortable. You can’t build the website for everyone.

You need to know the specific customer or customer group that you are trying to reach. When you have this information about your target market you are able to build a much much more successful website. Remember, this is your business website but we are building it for your target customers.

Make it easy to contact you

I have been to websites where i have left because the people did not put their physical address. Too many times i see websites with just a contact form and no phone numbers whatsoever. When you are building a website in Zimbabwe, keep this in mind. People trust businesses they can physically visit for verification. Make sure that it’s easy to locate you and to contact you. Display your phone numbers, address and your map location.

Feature and explain your products

There are websites that you visit that make you wonder ‘what exactly do these people do?’ They tell you that they offer integrated solutions for business communication. What exactly is that? Make your products and services clear. If possible, afford each product a dedicated page to fully explain what it is, what it does and it’s features. Any questions that customers frequently ask about that product should be asked right there on the website. How much will it cost? How do i buy? Can i get it different colors? Make it easy to do business with you.

Show off your skills

You are in business most probably because you are an expert in a particular skill. You have been educated, trained and perfected in that skill. But then again there are people who are out there to make a quick buck and do not care about professional work. So how do you prove that you are the real deal? One the ways to do that is show visitors to your website that you are really skilled. Show them a portfolio of some of the works you have worked on. Give them proof that you are genuine. Have you worked on other projects before? Show them that.

Prove your expertise

When looking for a service provider i am always asking myself ‘Can this person deliver, do they have the expertise to pull this?’. Proving your expertise is a must. Zimbabwe has an unemployment rate of more than 90%. Where do you think these 90% are? They are there on the streets running businesses. Some are good but the majority are not professionals, they just saw someone doing something and thought that they could do the same. It’s all about the money to them.

So exactly how do you prove that you are an expert? An expert is a person who is very knowledgeable about or skillful in a particular area. One of the best ways to prove that you are an expert on a particular subject is by writing articles on your website blog. This way you get to reach out to a targeted audience and prove that you are not a fly by the night.

Display customer testimonials and reviews

If you have been in business for sometime then you obviously have quite a number of customers. What do these customers think of your products and services? Would they recommend others to do business with you? You can do this by displaying customer testimonials on your website. The best approach is to ask your customers for an honest review of your products and services. You can then list these on your website.

 

So there you have it. The proper way to build a website! Do you have anything to add to the list above? Tell us in the comments.

Do you want a website for your business?

A good website will help you grow your business.
The ultimate guide to increasing website traffic

The ultimate guide to increasing website traffic

Why is Website Traffic Important for my Business?

The 21st century has brought about a lot of changes to this world. One of those changes is the internet. Everyday more and more people are getting internet access and social media is growing in popularity. This presents a great opportunity for businesses to market themselves online. Any company that ignores the importance of marketing on the internet does so to it’s own disadvantage. The foundation of success for any website or internet business is traffic. Without website traffic there is no-one to visit your website. This means no-one to see what you have to offer and no-one to buy what you are selling.

Your website needs traffic in order to help your business grow. But it’s not just any traffic that you need, you need relevant traffic. Most people think that any traffic is good traffic. It’s important to remember that you are not trying to attract everyone to your website. You want only those people who are interested in your topic or what you are selling. Let’s assume that you sell luxury cars. There is no point in attracting people who are looking for low cost cars. They are not relevant to your business.

a. What is website traffic?

Website traffic refers to the number of people that visit your website, the pages that they view and the length of time they spend on those pages. When someone visits your website, their visit is recorded and any links that person might click and follow is also recorded. At the end of the day, these numbers are added up to give you an idea of how popular your website is.

b. The Importance of Website Traffic

So, why is website traffic so important for my business, you may ask?

If you are not attracting traffic it means your website is just sitting somewhere on the internet without serving any purpose. Every website needs traffic, and no matter how beautiful your website looks, if you are not attracting visitors, you will not be able to generate sales or achieving the end goal of your business.

Many people forget that it is people who view your website and do business with you online. In the end, your website and business will not survive without a steady flow of traffic from the right audience.

Here are three reasons why you need website traffic:

  • You need to generate more targeted traffic to generate sales and money, ultimately.
  • Traffic from people who are interested in what you are selling or promoting, is more likely to buy from you and refer your website to others.
  • An increase in the amount of time a person spends on your page, increases the likelihood that they will sign up for your newsletter or to receive your promotional content, allowing you to market to them long-term.

1. Content marketing

Think about it for a moment. When someone visits your website today, do they have any reason to come back tomorrow? If your website has nothing beneficial to the user then they really don’t have any reason to keep visiting your website. You can change this situation  by putting beneficial content on your website. Not your company’s adverts but content that genuinely helps your target audience. Do you offer car repair services? Maybe you can offer your customers information on how to take care of their cars. It could be information on how to check for oil level, how to check battery health, etc. You may be asking yourself why you should do that, well, here are some reasons why:

a. Content marketing establishes you as an authority

By producing great content on topics related to your industry and niche you portray yourself as an authority on the subject. Who would you rather build your house- someone with no proof of their expertise or someone who has written books on construction, taught in construction colleges and has a website that has lots of advice on construction techniques? I would go for the expert builder with proof of their knowledge. Customers are more likely to buy from you when they can see the proof that you know about the service you offer.

Authority on a given topic has it’s many benefits. Which websites do you go to when you want to know more about a particular topic? Think of news websites.. When you want to know about what’s going on in Zimbabwe which website do you visit? That’s authority. To own a particular subject or niche in the minds of people. Authority helps you come first in their minds. Some of the benefits of authority include:

  • Free referrals when people refer others to you as an authority in your industry. Whenever someone wants something that you offer people simply refer you.
  • Search engines are all about information. The more authoritative content you have on your website means they have more to show about you.
  • Easily earn links from other websites when people link to the content you have on your website. This brings in new visitors and gives you a boost in search engines as well.

b. Content marketing encourages repeat visits

When you regularly publish new content on your website you encourage regular visits. People have a reason to check in on your website because they know there is something fresh every-time. To make it a lot more convenient for your visitors you can also put in place an email subscription service. This way every-time you publish new content anyone who has subscribed receives an email notification.

2. Search engine marketing

Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing have become the primary method that people use to search and find information on the internet. One of the best ways that your website can get a lot of continued traffic is by being listed on these search engines. This is how it works: A user visits a search engine and searches for something. The search engine will look at it’s database of websites and give the searcher a list of results that the search engine thinks are relevant to what the user is searching for. Let’s assume that the user is looking for ‘cars to hire’. The search engine will then give the user a list of websites about car hire. This list is arranged in groups of 10 websites per page. Most people never go to page 2 of these results.

  • 93% of online experiences start with a search engine
  • 75% of users never go to the second page of a search query
  • 70% of the links users click are organic rankings
  • 77% of these go to the top 5 results.

There are basically two types of search engine marketing and these are:

a. Organic marketing (search engine optimization)

Search engine optimization or SEO as it is more popularly known, is a method of making a website appear at the top of search engine listings. It’s quite a complicated process and the search engines continually change the rules of the game. When a website is search engine optimized it gets more traffic. Search engine optimization is keyword specific. You can’t get optimized for every word out there. If you offer car repair services you don’t want to be found when people search for printer repair. If those people visit your website they will just leave without buying anything.

b. Paid search engine advertising

The second type of search engine marketing is paid advertising. Almost all the search engines offer an option to pay to appear at the top of search engine results. Since it takes a bit of some time for a website to climb search engine results organically, paid advertising may offer a quick solution. Paid adverts also appear at the top above organic listings offering more visibility for your website.

3. Social media marketing

Social networks have been on the rise over the last 10 years as more and more people get access to the internet. The most noteworthy of which are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Google+. Each of these major social networks has millions of followers and users. Many businesses have perfected their marketing over time to leverage the power of these social networks. Statistics on social media use show that millions of social media users are active daily on their network of choice. This presents a huge opportunity for businesses especially when it comes to receiving website traffic. Social networks are one of the highest website traffic referral sources. So what exactly do you need to benefit from this potentially high traffic to your website?

a. Have something to offer

Most business owners think that social media marketing is as simple as creating a profile and inviting a few people over to like their page or follow them. The reality is that it’s more complicated than that. Remember, people are not on social networks with the intention to buy, they are there mostly just for fun. To attract this person requires you to have a strong pull factor. You need to have a strong offer to get this person’s attention.

Your offer could be anything like a discount, a free trial, a link to an article on your blog, etc. As long as what you are offering is relevant to the audience you want to attract then it should serve the purpose of attracting them. Don’t forget the important part, the objective here is increasing traffic to your website, so always include the link to the specific resource on your website.

b. Be creative

Social media marketing needs to be fun and unique for it to serve the purpose of attracting attention. Find new and unique ways to tell the story of your brand and what you stand for. Get inspiration from other businesses that are doing well on social media. Attracting attention is hard work. Think about what new ways you can use to gain that cherished click to your website. Think of campaigns like the Ice Bucket or the Mannequin Challenge. Here are 20 example Facebook campaigns to get you started.

c. Be adaptive

Be warned, social networks are not created equal. Each social network is different from the others. For example, Twitter works mainly by sending short ‘tweets’. LinkedIn is mainly a business and employment oriented social network. What works on one social network may not necessarily work on another as the audiences are usually different. Choose which social network to be active on carefully and adapt your message to each individual social network.

d. Amplify your reach with paid advertising

Once you have established your presence on a particular social media network, updated your profile and have an enticing offer it may be a good idea to amplify your reach through paid advertising. Most social networks now have an option to pay so that you can reach more people with your message. It’s important to have tested your offering first before investing a lot in paid advertising. Your want to get a lot of feedback from your social connections and incorporate the feedback in your offering if possible. Once you have fine-tuned your message you can safely increase your advertising budget. Don’t forget to monitor and adjust when necessary. As long as your offering appeals to your target audience you cannot go wrong on this one.

4. Email marketing

In its simplest definition, email marketing is the process of using email to send adverts, request business, or solicit sales or donations, and is meant to build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness.

a. Get permission first

Email marketing is a process. It’s about getting permission from someone to email them. Too many times businesses bombard people with emails without even asking for permission to inbox them. Not only is this rude and illegal, it’s bad marketing. Don’t do it. So how do you get someone’s permission to email them? The easiest way way is simply to ask for it. Put a form to ask visitors to your website for their email address and permission to email them.

b. Don’t be a nuisance

In real life there is probably no-one as boring as the guy who wants to be the only one talking. They talk about themselves, their accomplishments and possessions and never listen to anyone. Don’t be that guy. Your emails must not be just about you. Don’t email your subscribers everyday unless you have made it clear that it’s a daily email list. Even worse than emailing everyday is emailing multiple times daily. It simply makes you lose their respect. (There are exceptions to this of-course, like in the case where you run a daily email service and have made it clear to subscribers. Think of news websites emailing a daily top news digest).

c. Email marketing is about building trust, authority and relationship

What is the role of email marketing in your business? Email marketing is an avenue to tell a story, to build trust in your brand, to prove that you are an authority on a given subject. The end result being that a prospective customer should become convinced without being forced to be a loyal customer. So what do you send your subscribers? The bulk of your emails should be on building trust. Focus on helping your prospects. Make sure that every piece of content you publish has an offer or call to action so that your prospects know what to do next.

 

5. Links on relevant websites

A website is very different from a physical store. While it’s very possible for someone to just stumble upon a physical store, that is very unlikely for a website. Most of the times people need ‘directional signs’ to get to your website. These directional signs come in the form of links to your website. When someone clicks on the link they are directed to your website. It stands to reason that the more links you have pointing to your website the more traffic you receive on your website.

So how do you earn links on other peoples’ websites? There are several methods:

a. Guest posting

What is guest posting you might ask? Simply put guest posting is creating content and publishing it on another person’s website. Read more at Backlinko

Guest posting is actually content marketing. The only difference is that the content is not on your website but on another website. Guest posts are one of the best ways to get word out there about the existence of your website. And if the content you post is very good there is a very high chance that people reading the article will want to know more by following through to your website.

b. Advertising sites

Most websites offer an option for paid advertising these days. These advertising websites can range from classified sites, industry specific websites to news websites. The majority of them are websites that receive a significant amount of traffic. This increases your chances of getting more traffic.

c. Business directories

Business directories have been around for quite sometime. An online business directory is a website that contains listings of companies for a particular niche. There are different types of business directories. Some are industry specific, some are country or city specific and some are just general. Most business directories offer the option of including a link to the company’s website.

d. Links to articles you wrote

Another method of getting links without asking for them is for people to simply link to your articles. When you are very good at what you do people are simply inspired by you and will naturally talk about you to anyone. When you write very powerful and helpful tips people will love what you do and share it with others. The secret here is to be outstanding. If you are just ordinary in your writing or service then there really is nothing to talk about.

6. Offline media

You should never pass an opportunity to increase the traffic that comes to your website. This is why your should include a link to your website in everything you give out. Make sure you include your website address in all your corporate stationery. This is everything from business cards, fliers, complimentary slips, letterheads, receipt books, adverts, etc. Let it be everywhere including promotional gifts, presentation slides even your Whatsapp status.

 

So there you have it, go out there and start increasing the traffic to your website

Do you want more traffic to your website?

What good is a website that no-one ever sees? More website traffic means more visitors which means more customers.

8 things your website should do to grow your business

8 things your website should do to grow your business

One very frequent frustration most business owners have is that their website doesn’t seem to have any positive impact on their business. You pay for your domain renewal and website hosting but nothing ever seems to come out of it. Your website is a recurring expenditure and it seems all you do is pay, pay and pay. Ask yourself these questions?

  • Is my website an expenditure or an investment?
  • Is it a liability or an asset?
  • Does my website take away money or bring me money?
  • How much money has my website made me in the last year?
  • How much money have I spent on my website in the last year?

 

Yes you have a catchy design that looks nice but your business doesn’t need ‘nice’ only. It needs to grow! It needs more visitors, more sales, more customers and more profit. And your business website should support those goals. If it doesn’t then why waste more money on it? Your website should be an asset and an investment. It should make you more money and bring you more business. Let’s look at 8 things your website should do for your business:

1. A 24/7 online business representative.

A website is a very important business asset. It represents your business online and answers frequent questions that a normal business representative is asked. Things like who are you? Where are you located? What are your telephone numbers? What products do you sell and what services do you have on offer? Think about these facts –

  • Your business has opening and closing times.

This is a major limitation because customers are restricted to the time that you are open in order to make an inquiry. A website changes all this and allows you to serve customers night and day and at their convenience. A website never sleeps and will provide prospects with information on a continuous basis. It’s the perfect employee! A 24/7 corporate representative. How much would you pay an employee who never sleeps and is always serving customers no-matter what time of day it is? A website is a LOT cheaper than an employee.

  • You are located in a specific location or locations at a time.

Every business has a physical presence either in one location or multiple locations. No-matter how many locations you can be found in, you are still faraway than the business that has a website. These days people no longer want to travel to find products and services. They prefer to do it online. It’s more convenient and you save on time and transport cost.

  • You have a limit on the number of employees you have.

Imagine if your business has a lot of visitors at the same time. You have a limited number of staff members so it means having visitors and customers wait in line until its their turn. A website solves all of that. It can serve hundreds, thousands and even millions at the same time.

2. Market your business and it’s uniqueness.

Every business is unique and so is yours. Uniqueness is important. It’s what differentiates you from your competitors. Think about it. If you are the same as your competitors then why should a customer come to you and not to your competitors? You need to differentiate yourself and let that differentiation show on your website. Your business must have a unique value proposition, something that tells your visitors that this is ‘us’. This is what we stand for and how we do business.

3. Advertise your products and services.

You are in business to provide your customers with products and service. The best place you can showcase what you do is your own website. Everywhere else you are going to be limited in terms of how you present and advertise what you offer. You will be limited in number of products, words and photos you can use. You are limited by the design, structure and layout of other websites where you may want to advertise. But on your own website you have complete freedom as to how you want the world to see your products.

It’s very important to list each of your products and services on each own page. This makes it easier to share the web address to that product. Let’s say you sell common bricks. When someone asks you about common bricks,, instead of giving them a link to all your products you simply provide them the URL to the common bricks page. This is convenient to your customers and also helps you to rank higher in search engines. It’s important not to just place a page for every product or offering you have but to explain the product. Provide sufficient information to visitors so that they don’t need to phone or email asking questions.

Answer frequently asked questions about the product right there on the page. If you product has photos this should also be included together with any information on product benefits. Lastly, you need to provide your website visitors with very clear instructions on what they need to do to order or buy the product. Don’t assume that they will know what to do, guide them!

4. Sell and accept payments for products and services online.

A good website will not just introduce products to customers. No, it will allow them to order and buy the product or service right there on the website. If you can save your customers the need to visit your offices and make the buying process more convenient then do it. With almost every customer on Ecocash now having a Mastercard, buying online has never been easier in Zimbabwe.

There are now also facilities like Paynow that help you accept payments on your website using methods like Ecocash, Telecash, Visa and Mastercard. You have the option to accept payments online and offer paid delivery services via shipping options like DHL. If you provide a service that need your customers to provide you with custom information then you can always include a website form to capture that information.

5. Gather sales leads continuously.

What happens on your website when someone visits it? Do you even know who visited your website? The reason someone visited your website is most likely because they were interested in what you have to offer. They may not have called or ordered something because they are still researching or they don’t have the funds as yet. It’s very easy for such people to forget you and buy somewhere else. There’s so much competition around and anyone can wow your them away. So what should you do? I’m glad you asked.

You need to give your visitors a chance to give you their contact details. A phone number or an email address will do. This way you follow up with your visitors. You can send them links to your articles about the product they were interested in. How to guides, case studies, promotions and discounts or trial accounts work here. Whatever you decide on doesn’t really matter, what’s important is that you find a way of capturing leads so that your sales team can follow up and help them become customers.

6. Educate visitors and customers about your products and services.

This is a big problem i have seen with many African websites. Even big telecommunication companies continually make it. They offer a product or service and then leave the customer to figure out what to do on their own. You need to educate your customers about your offerings. What are the benefits? What do i do if i encounter problems? How do i get started? This is very important information on a website. If you sell cement as an example, tell your customers how to use the cement. What proportions do i need for floors? How about walls? Offer your visitors something of value. Trust me, they will appreciate it.

7. Attract new visitors to your website.

This is at the end but is probably the most important. If your website has the catchy latest design on the planet but has no traffic then all that money or effort into it were just a waste. Your website must do the hard work for your business. It must attract new visitors who are looking for what you have to offer. If you offer shoe repair services and someone types that in Google then your website must appear in the search results. If someone clicks on that then you have gained a new visitor and quite possibly a new customer. This process is called search engine optimization.

8. Get insight and data about your visitors.

Who visits your website? What is their age? They come from which country? Do they use mobile devices or desktops to view your website? Which are the most popular pages on your website? How do they reach your website? Most website owners don’t have any data or information about their website visitors. They are completely clueless. In order to be able to continually improve your business, you need to know who you are serving and be able to make changes as necessary. A service like Google Analytics can provide immense value.

Consider this example – You offer a service and require your customers to come and fill in a form at your offices. When you look at your website you discover that 75% of your website visitors are from the UK. Requiring such visitors to come to your offices is simply not practical. You have to make changes if you want to convert these visitors into customers.

Conclusion

Does your website make you money? Tell us in the comments below. If you liked this article please share it with your friends.

Get yourself a website that ACTUALLY makes you money

At Angel & Walt we specialize in building websites that help you grow and succeed.

The benefits of a mobile responsive website

The benefits of a mobile responsive website

It’s very easy to ignore and dismiss the importance of building a mobile responsive website. After all, isn’t this just a passing fad? Not at all. The majority of connections to the internet are from mobile devices. According to the POTRAZ 2016 2nd Quarter Report, the total number of internet connections in Zimbabwe stands at around 6.7 million. Of this about 6.5 million are mobile connections. That’s an astounding 97% that’s mobile based. Be warned, ignore the buying power of mobile users at your own peril.

What is a responsive website?

Traditionally, people accessed the internet from desktop and laptop computers. As more and more people started to increasingly make use of their mobile devices (tablet and smartphones) to connect to the internet, a new challenge began to develop. The websites did not fit on the small screen of these smaller devices. To view the website you needed to do a lot of scrolling sideways and downwards. The solution to this problem are responsive websites. A responsive website adapts the content of the website to the size of the device screen.

Here are 6 key benefits of having a responsive website:

Content flexibility

A responsive website is fluid. This means the content fits freely on all screen sizes and devices. It’s much like water. Water takes the shape of any container that it is poured in making it highly flexible. Just as water fills an allotted space and retain its appearance, a responsive website’s fluidity achieves the same result with website content on a device screen.

A great user experience

The secret to every successful website are happy customers. Your website must allow people access on their own terms. If someone wants to access it from their workplace laptop, or on their phone while on the bus it’s their choice. Empower your website users to exercise their choice. A rigid website will stress a website visitor by making them zoom in and out of content and scrolling to view your pages. A responsive website allows your visitors to do the one thing that’s important – concentrate on the message.

Increased traffic and conversion rates

A responsive website will help drive traffic to your website. Mobile users are more likely to use sites that are designed for mobile use instead of those that simply display a desktop version on mobile devices. Upgrading to a responsive website allows you to better meet mobile users’ needs and can positively impact traffic to your site.

In addition, a responsive design helps in converting all that traffic into actual customers. Your responsive website makes it easier for users to follow through on your website’s purpose and goal. Every website must have a goal. This is the what you want people who visit your website to do after visiting. In other words traffic must have a purpose. This could be to register an account, make a purchase or fill a form. So let’s say your website goal is for a user to register an account. Your website then receives 100 visitors and 20 visitors proceed to register an account. Your conversion rate in this case is 20%. The goal is to raise that figure as high as possible.

If visitors to your website encounter challenges in registering an account they will leave and your conversion rate will fall. A responsive website ensures that visitors on mobile devices view your website without hassles therefore allowing them to complete the end objective.

Saves development time and costs

The traditional approach to building a website that can be viewed on both desktop computers and mobile devices is to build to separate websites. One for desktops and one for mobile devices. The boring thing about it is that these two websites have the same content, the only difference is that the content for different devices. So for every work you do on your website you have to do so twice. This means twice the time, twice the effort and twice the cost.

A responsive website solves that problem. You can have one website serving content for all types of devices. Talk about efficiency.

SEO boost

A responsive website has another benefit in terms of search engine optimization (SEO). Google now favors responsive websites in search results made on mobile devices. So by getting a responsive website you get a visibility boost over those websites that are not responsive. The second SEO advantage is that a mobile site means you no longer have duplicate content on your website. Since you are no longer maintaining two versions of the same website, it means Google has to index only one website version. Google hates duplicate content and by eliminating it from your website you gain an advantage.

Easy to manage

Having a separate desktop and mobile site requires having to duplicate site management and marketing campaigns. It means running two SEO campaigns and updating two websites. Managing one site and one SEO campaign is far easier than managing two sites and two SEO campaigns. This is a key advantage that a responsive website has over a separate mobile site.

Do you have any questions or contribution to make to this article? Join the discussion in the comments below.

Do you need a mobile responsive website?