If you own a website, it can be difficult to know how to get it off the ground. Your website is important, especially if you are using it as a platform for your business. You need to walk before you can run as there is a lot of information that website owners need to consider when creating a successful presence online.
Here are 8 things that every website owner should know.
1. Make It Mobile Friendly
Making your website mobile-friendly should be priority number one. The number of smartphone users is growing at an exponential rate, with over three billion people now using a smartphone, this number is only expected to grow at an increased rate. With those statistics in mind, most of the traffic that comes to your website will be viewed predominantly via mobile. So if your website does not look good or is not compatible with a mobile format, you will have a significant amount of traffic and you will lose it fast. To get optimal visitors, check your website and ensure that its mobile view is compatible.
2. Keep It Secure
As a website owner, you will also need to prioritise keeping your website secure. Whatever tool you use to build your website, the host will offer you different security plans to choose from. This is not something to take lightly, as cybercrime is more common than you might think and being a victim of one can cause long-lasting and irreversible damage. Cyber attacks come in many different formats but in 2019 the most common cyber attacks in the United States were phishing attacks, with a whopping 65% of US companies falling victim to phishing scams. So, whatever hosting platform you are using to build and maintain your website, make sure that you are going for the most secure option. While it can be a bit pricey to get the best security, it can save you money in the long run as it can prevent you from falling victim to expensive ransomware attacks.
3. Use Social Media
Your social media platforms and your website need to work together as one strong unit. Do not neglect one in favour of the other as this can be damaging for your overall online reputation. An active social media presence will pull in extra visitors to your website. Additionally, putting links to all your social media platforms on your website will encourage visitors to follow you, creating more consistent and loyal customers/ viewers. Social media is a very powerful tool for website owners as it gives them insights into their customers and who they are. Similarly, it gives customers a chance to see some personality beyond the professional brand.
4. Use Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a great way to generate more viewers, higher profits and greater brand awareness. Affiliates will share links that bring viewers to your website, and their hard work is rewarded with a commission that tends to be a percentage of a sale.
To increase the number of people visiting your website you might want to consider using affiliate marketing. More and more businesses are using affiliates as it benefits both the business and the affiliate. Different websites will have varying terms and conditions surrounding this marketing method, for instance, Amazon Associates will face several rules, and if they break their accounts can be permanently banned. So if you are planning to explore this route, make sure you have a clear understanding of what you want and set these out in easy to follow guidelines so that your affiliates know exactly what is expected of them.
5. Get Familiar With SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) can be a daunting prospect for a lot of website owners. It is quite a simple concept, however, it can be hard to achieve without the right knowledge. The basics of SEO is the art of using particular keywords and phrases that will help identify your website and place it higher in the rankings. This can take some time and experimenting before you get it right. So do not be disheartened if your website does not come up as the first result on the google search right away. It is a process, it will take time and it will also require continuous attention to make sure that your website stays high up in the ranks. There are plenty of online courses, resources and freelancers that specialize in SEO that are available to help you get the results you want.
6. Keep It Up To Date
Regardless of the purpose of your website, you will need to keep its content up to date. If the last post was 6 months ago, viewers might think that the website is no longer relevant. Pushing out fresh and relevant content will keep your website alive and will keep viewers coming back. Avoid falling into the habit of posting content for the sake of it, ask yourself why you are posting it and what will your viewers get out of it?
7. Keep It Quick
We live in a world where we can get everything in an instant and this has led to an impatient society. If your website is slow to load, most people will jump ship and go back to the Google search to find something else. So if your loading times are not up to scratch, you risk sending your customers to your competitors. If you are unsure of how to check your speed, try using PageSpeed to give you insight into how quick your current load times are, and how you can improve your speed.
8. Design Is Key
At the end of the day, you could be a master in SEO, social media, affiliate marketing, the lot! But if you do not have a good website design, then all of those skills become irrelevant. People will make a split-second judgment about your business depending on the look of your website design. If it looks unorganized and unpleasant to the eye, people will just go elsewhere. A clean, coherent and easy-to-follow website, with consistent branding is essential.
Every website owner needs to carefully consider each of these 8 points, and use them to strengthen their online presence because without them you risk your website becoming another lost webpage in the depths of the internet.
