Website – Content Library

Getting Started With Your E-Commerce Website

From startups and small businesses to huge brands, every business can benefit from an e-commerce website, where they can sell their products or services. In today’s competitive and convenience focused society, no longer do consumers want to go out to buy items, instead, consumers want to shop from the comfort of their own homes, making e-commerce a perfect solution for both businesses and buyers.

But while setting up an online store might seem complicated and time-consuming, it’s actually not too difficult.

Getting your business up and selling is possible with Website Express. This powerful product allows you to quickly and easily create a website and online store powered by WordPress and WooCommerce. To make the transition to e-commerce seamless, we also have a visual builder within every Website Express account. This allows you to design and create beautiful websites without having to write a single line of code.

What you’ll need to get started:

A Website Express account
Products or services to sell
30-60 minutes to set up and add products to your online store

Before you begin

Before you jump into Website Express and start building your store, consider the following:

Understand your inventory situation. What kinds of products do you sell? How are they typically sold?
How are you wanting to sell? Local delivery? Pick-up only? While shipping is possible using Website Express, it will cost money. Initially, it may be best to start out with local delivery and pick-up.
Set aside some inventory for online-only selling. Managing inventory with multiple selling platforms can be tricky at first, so it’s best to make it as simple as possible and develop a personalized system as you go along.

It may be best to start with about five products or services. Putting your entire inventory into your ecommerce store at once could be overwhelming, and managing the listings, sales, and fulfillment can feel like a lot for an online newbie as well.

Once you’ve chosen the products or services you want to focus on, find or generate pictures, pricing, and a description for each. Note any important attributes or variations in your products (e.g., dimensions, various sizes, colors).

Let’s start building your ecommerce website!

Setting up your website

Enter the Website Express product by clicking on the ‘Website’ tab in the left navigation menu.

You will be directed to confirm your site name, tagline, and set your subdomain. This is the URL that users will type in to find your site.

Now it’s time to choose your template. The three at the top are the Dark, Light, and Blank options. These templates DO NOT have an easy commerce solution and may require more advanced coding. Select one of the options that are [Vertical] – With Divi and WooCommerce to ensure your site has the proper functionality.
Preview and compare several different templates. Once you have chosen a template, you cannot change it.

Once you select a template sit back and relax while your new website spins up. This process may take 3 to 5 minutes to load.

You will arrive at your website’s dashboard. Your stats will be at zero at the moment, this is the place you can return in the future to see how well your website is performing.

On the left-hand side, there will be a button “Edit My Site”. Click it to start editing the front end, or content of your website.

Editing text/images on your website

It’s time to customize your site! Let’s start with text elements. Click on the text box you’d like to edit and start making changes.
Alternatively, when you hover over an element, a small dark toolbar will appear. Click on the gear icon to pull up a window that provides more options for editing and customization. Click on the window’s green checkmark to save changes.

This same process also works with any buttons on the page. However, as buttons have more options, you’ll need to pull up the editing modal to further customize it. You can do this by double-clicking the button, or pulling it up through the tab bar in the same way that you did with the text boxes.
Now it’s time for images! Many templates will have a large picture set as the background or banner across the top. To change the image, simply hover over it (while not interfering with text or other elements) and double-click. An editing modal should pop up. Click on the “Background” headline. Your current background image should be showing. Click the garbage can icon to delete the placeholder image and then click on the “Add image” icon that appears. You can either drag the image from a file on your computer or click to browse your files for the image you prefer.

To edit other images on the site, simply double-click the image and replace it with your own.

Adding and removing elements on your website

If there are any elements (text blocks, images, etc.) that you don’t want on your website, simply hover over the element and select the trash can icon.
If you want to add elements to your page, either:
- Hover over the area you’d like to add an element and click the grey “+”,
- Hover over the element above the spot you’d like your new element to be placed, and look for a green “+”. You may have to actually click on the element above for it to appear.

This will bring up an “add row” selector with different options as to the number of columns in your new element. Perhaps you would like three blocks of text side-by-side? Choose the row with three columns. Maybe a wide picture on the right and a narrow text box on the left? Choose the row that shows the corresponding spacing. Just want something to go straight across your entire page? Simply choose the first option available, the one with a single column.

Another window should pop up now with several different element options. Search for the Image option to add a picture, the Text option for adding text, or browse to see what other options are available.

Saving your work and moving on to edit another page

Once you’re happy with how your website looks, or every so often along the way, you’ll want to save your progress. Look for the purple icon with three dots at the bottom of your page and click it. The icon should multiply and you’ll now have several purple icons. You’ll also have a green “Save” button in the bottom right corner. Click it to save your changes.
To move to another page to edit, click “Exit Visual Builder” at the top of your page. Once you’ve done so, you’ll see your page exactly as your customers will see it. To edit another page, navigate to that page and then re-enable the visual builder using the button at the top of the screen.

Changing the logo and contact information on your website

To change the logo and contact information on the website you will need to navigate to the WordPress dashboard. To do this, click the name of your business in the top left corner of the screen. Once in your WordPress dashboard, in the left navigation bar click the Divi tab.

You are now on the general settings tab. The top row is where you change the logo. Click the “Upload” button.

Once you’ve uploaded your logo, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and click the green “Save changes” button.
Next, we’ll plug in your business’ contact information. Back in the left navigation. You may notice that the Divi Builder tab has extended to include several sub-headings. Click on “Theme Customizer”.
This should bring up a new page with a different left-hand navigation. Click on “Header and Navigation”, and then “Header Elements”. The navigation bar should now contain two text bars for you to plug in your business’s information.
Click the blue “Publish” button at the top of the page to save your changes to your webpage.

Setting up your online store

To begin building out your store, you’ll need to navigate to your WordPress dashboard. Once on the WordPress dashboard hover over the WooCommerce tab in the left navigation and click Settings.
Once on this page, look to the top right corner. You should see a tab with the heading, “Help” and a downward arrow. Click on it.
An entirely new menu should pop down. Looking at the top left side, you should see four different tabs. Click on the Setup Wizard tab, then the blue Setup Wizard button. Follow all the steps and fill in all forms (as applicable).

Adding products to your online store

Now it’s time to add products into your online store! Back on the left side navigation bar of your WordPress Dashboard, you should see the tab, “Products”. Click it.
You will see a couple of placeholder products already in your store. You can either edit one of these, or you can start from scratch to add your own products to the store by clicking the “Add New” at the top of the page.
To use the template, simply double-click the product name and replace the existing text with your own. By scrolling down you will see a space for you to input the price of your product, as well as the number of items in your inventory, and a place to add any attributes.

You will also be able to replace the image by clicking the “Product Image” on the lower right side. Click on the image to replace it with your own. If you’d like to add additional images, look just underneath to the “Product Gallery” and click on “Add product gallery images”.

Setting up payments for your online store

To set up the ability to take payments, hover over the WooCommerce tab in the left navigation and click “Settings”.
Click the “Payments” tab.

There will be a number of options available to you. All are turned off unless you enable them, which you can do by clicking on the toggle. It should turn purple once activated. Next, click the “Setup” button to the right of the option you just chose, and it will take you to a page of information to fill out to fully setup the process.
- If you would like to use a different payment processor (ex. Stripe), WooCommerce has a variety of additional plugins for this. To add it, hover over the Plugin tab on the left navigation bar, then click “Add New”. Once on that page, look for the “Search Plugins” text box and search for “WooCommerce Stripe”. Once it appears, simply click “Add” and “Enable”. Then return to the payments tab from previous to set it up.

Congratulations, you now have the knowledge you need to set up your own online store. Happy selling!

WooCommerce and Divi Builder have extensive documentation and tutorials on how to set up, edit, manage, and operate your store.

Why Your Website Needs an SSL Certificate

Have you ever noticed that some website URLs start with HTTP while others start with HTTPS? Maybe you’ve noticed a tiny lock icon in the top left corner of your browser? What exactly does it all mean?

Websites that are HTTPS have an SSL certificate.

SS-what? SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer and is a secure protocol developed for sending sensitive information over the internet. If a website you are on has an SSL certificate, it means that the site is secure and encrypted. Any data you enter is safely shared with that website and that website only.

Let’s talk technical for a second. How does SSL actually prevent information theft?

When you start to break down what SSL is, you’ll discover it’s asymmetric (or public-key) encryption. This requires each party to generate a public and private key pair. Imagine a padlock on a gate. Anyone can go up to the lock, inspect it, and even try to open it with their key. However, only the right key can actually unlock it. In this example, the padlock is a public key, they are visible to the general public. Private keys are exactly that, private. These private keys are used to unlock public keys.

When you fill out a form on a website without an SSL certificate, the information can be intercepted by a hacker. This site would be classified as not secure.

The information you submitted could be anything from a banking transaction to your credit card information. A hacker could intercept your information in a number of ways, one of the most common is when a hacker places a small, undetected listening program on the server that is hosting a website. That program ‘wakes up’ when a website visitor starts typing their information. This listening program will begin capturing the information and send it back to the hacker.

When you visit a website that has an SSL certificate, your browser will form a connection with the web server and bind to it. This connection is secure so that no one besides you and the website where you’re submitting your information can see or access it.

This connection happens instantly. There is no manual work required. You simply need to visit a website with an SSL certificate and your connection will automatically be secured.

Why is SSL so important?

You might be thinking, I’m not accepting sensitive information through my website! Regardless of if you are in the business of accepting delicate information or not, having an SSL certificate is still incredibly important.

SSL and SEO

In 2014, Google made adjustments to its ever-changing algorithm for SEO rankings. The major change? Websites using SSL certificates. Google began and still continues to flag sites without SSL certificates as untrustworthy.

Sites with an SSL certificate receive an SEO boost and will be the default result for searchers. If you want to be findable on Google, having an SSL certificate on your website is absolutely necessary.

SSL and online payments

If you are conducting online transactions through your website, it is imperative that you have an SSL certificate. As an online shop, it’s your primary responsibility to ensure that the information being exchanged over your online store is protected.

How do you prove to your customers that their usernames, passwords, and credit card numbers are not being revealed to malicious hackers? Having an SSL certificate!

SSL and consumer trust

Did you know that Google Chrome is the most popular web browser? 44.5% of internet users search the internet using it. On the Chrome browser, you are able to easily spot a site with an SSL certificate. Next to the URL is a tiny lock icon. If a site has an SSL certificate it shows it locked, however, if a site does not have an SSL certificate the lock will be open and red text will read ‘Not Secure’. The second a customer lands on a website that is labeled ‘not secure’, they are going to feel less comfortable browsing it, even if there is no sensitive information being passed across it. SSL certificates have become an absolute necessity for any business that wants to be perceived as trustworthy.

There’s no denying the confidence and trust that an SSL certificate can provide to a site. Choosing an SSL certificate to secure a website demonstrates that a business values customer trust, which is essential to financial success, customer conversion, and business growth.

Understanding and Optimizing Your Website Speed

What is Page Speed?

Page speed is the amount of time it takes for the content on a website’s page to fully load. In a world where people have come to expect instantaneous results, faster is better.

In fact, nearly half of web users expect a site to load in 2 seconds or less, and they tend to abandon a site that isn’t loaded within 3 seconds, according to surveys done by Akamai and Gomez.com.

But how long do most websites take to load?

The standards many have been using for page load time come from a study conducted by Geoff Kenyon where he compares website speed against the rest of the web:

if your site loads in 5 seconds, it is faster than approximately 25% of the web
if your site loads in 2.9 seconds, it is faster than approximately 50% of the web
if your site loads in 1.7 seconds, it is faster than approximately 75% of the web
if your site loads in 0.8 seconds, it is faster than approximately 94% of the web

So how can you determine how your website stacks up?

How to Determine Your Page Speed and Score

Here’s how to measure how your website stacks up:

Hop into your website’s Google Analytics Site Speed reports. This will give you an idea of how your site has performed over various time periods and the load speed of each of your pages.
Enter your site’s URL into Google’s PageSpeed Insights Tool. This will give you a report card on your website’s speed performance on mobile devices and desktop. The report comes with some recommended actions you can take to improve your site’s speed.
Check Pingdom’s website speed test to find out the speed, rank and percent faster than the average of Pingdom’s tested websites
GTMetrix will provide a comprehensive look at your site’s speed optimization status.

Note: Don’t puzzle yourself when you see different speed timing in Pingdom and Gtmetrix. As Pingdom will show you load time (The time it takes to show the first result of your website—that’s what google counts and you should too) and GTmetrix will show you full load time (The time it takes to show full page with it’s full functionality running).

For further understanding, it’s always good to see the speed waterfall from both tools.

Why Does Page Speed Matter?

Bridging the gap between user expectations (2 seconds) and average website load time (5 seconds) is the goal of page speed optimization and the tactics we’ll outline later. But why exactly does page speed matter? It comes down to 3 main interconnected reasons:

1. Speed Kills UX

User experience is probably the most important reason you should care about website speed, so we’ll start here.

People don’t have the patience for slow loading websites anymore. In the beginning, just connecting to the internet required a tolerance that just doesn’t exist anymore.

Today, people are constantly online and you’ve got 3 seconds maximum to display your page or they’re gone. More than 3 seconds creates a poor user experience and the bar is only going to get higher in the future.

2. Speed Kills SEO

User experience is actually the driving force behind the SEO implications of site speed. While Google has been slow to officially reveal whether slow websites would receive ranking demotions, it appears that those days are coming. You need to make sure your website is ready.

3. Speed Kills Conversions

Your site speed’s effect on conversions is what should really catch your attention. How can you move people through your funnel if each step takes forever? Your super-fans will do it, but those new, hesitant people who are prone to buyers-remorse will bounce.

8 Tactics to Make Your Website Load Faster

Speeding up your site is not necessarily going to be a snap. If you have a small, light site you may just need to try a couple of tactics on this list.

However, large, older sites with a lot of code and content may require some persistence and the implementation of several tactics on the following list.

Here’s where to start:

1. Leverage browser caching:

When you visit sites, your browser often caches pages on the site to speed up load time.

Browser caching stores webpage resource files on a local computer when a user visits a webpage, so leveraging browser caching is when you instruct browsers how their resources should be dealt with.

Things can slow down when the response from your server does not include caching headers or if resources are specified to be cached for only a short time.

Leveraging caching will load your pages much faster for repeat visitors and so will other pages that share those same resources.

Here’s how to do it

2. Optimize images:

If images load faster, your site loads faster, period. Google notes that “…images often account for most of the downloaded bytes on a page. As a result, optimizing images can often yield some of the largest byte savings and performance improvements.”

This means that you can get some big improvements when the images on your pages can be optimized to reduce their file size without significantly impacting their visual quality.

Here’s how to do it

3. Minify HTML, CSS & JavaScript:

Minifying removes any unnecessary characters that are not required for the code to execute.

Sources of redundant data that you can remove includes code comments and formatting, removing unused code, using shorter variable and function names, and more.

Here’s how to do it

4. Enable gzip compression:

Gzip compression drastically reduces the size of files sent from your server when someone visits your website. This will speed things up considerably.

According to GTMetrix,

“The reason gzip works so well in a web environment is because CSS files and HTML files use a lot of repeated text and have loads of whitespace. Since gzip compresses common strings, this can reduce the size of pages and style sheets by up to 70%!”

Here’s how to do it

5. Reduce server response time:

Server response time is the amount of time it takes for a web server to respond to a request from a browser. This is a key issue to address because if your server response time is slow your pages will display slow, no matter how optimized your pages are for speed.

Google says you should reduce your server response time under 200ms. So how do you make this happen?

Here’s how to do it

6. Avoid landing page redirects:

Your site can really slow down when you have more than one redirect from the given URL to the final landing page. This sets off a redirect loop that takes time to process.

Here are a few examples of redirects that can slow things down:

example.com → m.example.com/home – multi-roundtrip penalty for mobile users.
example.com → www.example.com → m.example.com – very slow mobile experience.

Here’s how to do it

7. Prioritize visible content:

This is the exact message you’ll get from Google’s PageSpeed tool when additional network round trips are required to render the above the fold content of the page.

This “above the fold” content is what you see on a desktop or device when you visit a page. So prioritizing visible content is the recommendation that you prioritize things so that essential elements on your page load first (and quickly) for users and that you defer secondary page elements like social sharing plugins, analytics javascript, etc.

Here’s how to do it

8. Eliminate render-blocking JavaScript and CSS in above-the-fold content:

JavaScript and CSS resources often prevent your page from displaying until they’re fully loaded. This is often a good idea, since the premature display of your above the fold content can look pretty grotesque.

However, this is a common message you’ll get from Google about site speed, and addressing it can really take your page speed up a few notches.

Here’s how to do it

Note: This is the hardest thing to fix for most people. There are WordPress plugins that just do it but they can make your site look like Frankenstein on every load.

Want lightning-fast, Google Cloud-hosted WordPress sites? Contact us today!

55 Stellar Statistics for Websites

Welcome to the most comprehensive collection of design, functionality and content stats for websites.

Imagine a world where a single, gigantic shopping mall hosted a store for every business across the globe. It’s easy to imagine that any business that doesn’t have a store in this mall may as well not exist, as every consumer looking to shop would come to the mall to find what they need. If a business was nowhere to be found in this mall, the consumer would shop at one of the other infinite stores. Simple solution: all businesses need a store. However, simply having a store in the mall is not enough. Each store needs visible signage spread all throughout the mall to entice consumers, and businesses need to be accurately listed in the mall directories so shoppers know they exist. The more often a business and products/services are displayed and mentioned around the shopping mall, the easier it is for the shoppers to locate the store. Another simple solution: businesses need visible signage, and accurate listings in the mall directories. But, again, there’s more to attracting customers than just having pretty signs, and the store itself has to provide value, too. Once the consumer walks through the door, the look, feel and contents of a store have to be good enough to keep customers from turning around and walking out again.

Sounds complicated, doesn’t it? Good thing this shopping mall doesn’t exist, right? Wrong. The thing is, this shopping mall exists. It’s called the Internet. The store is your website. Everything that holds true for stores in our fantasy shopping mall is true for businesses on the internet.
Accurate signs and listings in the appropriate directories will get a business found, but it’s the business’s website that’s going to keep consumers interested. With over half of businesses having websites, businesses who want to experience success need to know how to stand out.

These stats for websites illustrate why it’s essential to build the best store in the mall, and how to keep traffic and conversion rates on the rise.

General

1. The average revenue for a small business is $3.6 million, but the average revenue for a small business with a website is $5.03 million
2. 53% of small businesses had websites in 2014
3. 67% of businesses with annual sales of $1,000,000 – $2,490,000 have websites

Functionality

4. 64% of shoppers who had a poor experience with their site visit will shop somewhere else next time
5. 39% of consumers will stop engaging with content if the images won’t load
6. 39% of consumers give up on content when it takes too long to load
7. 47% of consumers expect a page to load in 2 seconds or less
8. 23% of online shoppers will stop shopping if page loads are too slow, while 14% of online shoppers will take their business to another site
9. More than half (52%) of online shoppers say that quick page loading times are important for their loyalty to a site
10. Delays at peak traffic times made more than 75% of online consumers abandon a site for a competitor’s
11. A one second delay in website loading time can lead to a 7% loss in conversion
12. Increasing your site’s loading speed from 8 seconds to 2 seconds can boost conversion rate by 74%
13. A site that takes 6 seconds to load will have a 50% loss in conversion
14. 40% of consumers will abandon a website that takes longer than 3 seconds to load
15. 75% of online consumers will use the “back” button before a slow page fully loads
16. 51% of American online shoppers say that a slow loading time is the top reason they abandon a purchase
17. Slow websites cost retailers $2.6 billion in lost sales each year

Design

18. 38% of consumers will stop engaging with content that is unattractive in imagery or layout
19. A consumer’s first-impression of a website is 94% design-related
20. Website credibility is judged 75% on the site’s overall design
21. 85% of consumers will abandon a site due to poor design
22. Given 15 minutes, 66% of consumers would prefer consuming content that is beautifully designed than something simple
23. It takes consumers 0.05 seconds to form an opinion about your website, so use that time wisely!
24. The right colors increase brand recognition by 80%
25. 52% of consumers states “aesthetics” as the main reason why they would not return to a site

Devices

26. 90% of consumers use multiple devices sequentially
27. Not only are 97% of millennials mobile users, but 20% don’t use desktop at all
28. 61% of digital media time is spent on mobile, with only 39% on desktop
29. 85% of adult consumers believe that a company’s mobile site should be good or better than the desktop version
30. 65% of customers develop a better opinion of brands, services and products when they have a great mobile experience
31. 88% of consumers prefer to shop with retailers that deliver connected cross-channel experiences
32. If consumers have a good experience on your mobile site, they are 59% more likely to make a purchase
33. 67% of online shoppers are more likely to buy from a site that is compatible with mobile devices
34. Mobile-commerce (m-commerce) saw an annual growth of 56% in 2015, while desktop e-commerce only saw an increase of 8%
35. 50% of online shopping is done on a mobile device
36. Almost 70% of tablet users make a purchase on their device every month
37. Over 20% of tablet owners admit to shopping less in real life since they purchased their device
38. While 50% of consumers will switch devices if they are having trouble interacting with the content on a site, 33% will stop engaging entirely
39. 62% of companies that designed a site specifically for mobile experienced an increase in sales

Content

40. 47% of consumers check the products/services pages of a website first
41. 65% of consumers want to see contact information on the site’s home page
42. 44% of consumers left the website because there was no contact information
43. Over half of consumers want to see an “about us” section on a company’s home page
44. 54% of consumers find that a lack of contact information available on a vendor’s site reduces the vendor’s credibility
45. In a study of 200 small business websites, 70% did not display clear calls-to-action
46. TL;DR! 38% of consumers will stop engaging if the content is too long
47. 50% of sales are lost because consumers can’t find the content they’re looking for
48. 46% of consumers say that the most annoying thing about a website is the lack of message (unable to tell what the company does)
49. Keep it down! 33% of consumers said that video/audio that plays automatically on a website annoyed them or caused them to leave
50. 69% of consumers reported that having too many form fields deterred them from filling out a contact form
51. 70% of viewers look at lists with bullets, while only 55% look at lists without
52. Websites that have 51-100 pages generate 48% more traffic than website with 50 pages or less
53. 69% of North American marketers say that personalized and dynamic content is important for their business’s website
54. 20% of consumers think that a blog helps establish a company’s credibility
55. B2B companies that blog once/twice a month generate 70% more leads than companies that don’t blog at all

Sources: business2community, Adobe, Econsultancy, Statistic Brain, Hosting Facts, Online Marketing Institute, KoMarketing, Fifty and Fifty, NN Group, InvasionApp, TechRadar, comScore, IronPaper, Business Insider, Kinesis Inc, Entrepreneur

The world has gone digital, and business has followed. It’s easier to go where your audience is than to bring them to your door, and the biggest audience lives online. Carving out your own corner of digital space with a killer website is the first step to dominating the online world, and these stats for websites can be your guide.

3 Tips to Make Your Website Actually Useful

Gone are the days of a “form over function” internet. Where once the simple novelty of seeing a business online, in any fashion, was often enough. Now, today’s more savvy audiences simply want to get where they are going. So with the priorities of today’s business websites being speed and ease of use, here are 3 tips that can make sure you are providing your customers the information they require in the best way possible to help you make conversions either on your site or in person.

1. Where is the business?

Contact information is the most important information you can have on the internet. Seems simple enough, yet many well-intentioned websites make this information difficult to find. Studies show that people will tend to look at the top left corner of your website first, like they’re reading a book. This is where the most important information should be, your contact info—don’t make customers scour the page looking for a way to find your business.

There is lots of data you can include in the contact information section. The trick is finding the balance of information overload vs. unnecessary vagueness. There are three things you need to specifically include:

Hours of operation

People seeking this information are likely close to buying, so having your hours of operation listed accurately and in a fashion that’s easy to read is a huge priority. Here are two examples, one bad and one good, to showcase how your hours should be listed online

Don’t do it like this
We are open Mondays – 8:00 am-5:00 pm, Tuesdays – 8:00 am-5:00 pm, Wednesdays – 8:00 am-7:00 pm, Thursdays – 8:00 am-5:00 pm, Fridays – 8:00 am-7:00 pm, Saturdays 12:00 pm-5:00 pm and the service shop is also open until 7:00 pm.

Looks hard to read, right? It doesn’t look nice, it’s hard to look at specific days, and you don’t know if the service shop is just open on Saturdays, or if it’s always open until 7:00 pm every evening.

A better example
Sales:
Mon 8 – 5
Tues 8 – 5
Wed 8 – 7
Thurs 8 – 5
Fri 8 – 7
Sat 12 – 5
Sun Closed

Service:
Mon-Sat: 12 – 7

Looks a lot nicer, right? It’s a lot easier to read and find the information you need. The most important part is to make sure the hours are accurate. Even if it takes an extra line to better explain a confusing set of hours, customers greatly appreciate knowing when they can expect your business to be open.

Address

Unless you’re an online retailer, your address is an essential part of your contact listing. But just like hours of operation there is are a variety of ways to share your location. Here is how we recommend it. Provide enough information so that Google maps can locate the business. For people in major cities, often times just your street address is sufficient. But if your business is a little tricky to find consider linking to a map application, or have the map right on the website. If you’re going that direction, make sure to use an accredited map engine like Google Maps, instead of a hand-drawn creation. People tend to be a lot more familiar with popular map formats and might get confused/scared at the sight of your beautiful artwork.

Phone number

This is the number where customers can most easily reach you. Businesses with multiple departments equipped with individual phone lines, might want to stick those on a “Contact Us” page. There’s no sense in cluttering your home page with 30 different phone numbers. Businesses should have one phone number on the homepage display to be a catch-all for any inquiries. Don’t forget an area code for those out-of-town customers. Make it easy for on-the-go customers to hit a button and have their mobile device ring the business instantly.

2. Who is the business?

You likely have a lot to say about your business so the real challenge here is the distillation of your story. Here, think of the company from the customer’s’ perspective; what makes you unique? Why are you better than their competitors? What do you do for customers? These question will likely shed light on the most important information to share, at least at the top of the page.

Once you’ve got your top level information cased, consider designing a way for interested customers to learn even more about the business. There you can dive deeper into your history, philosophy, and share any achievements or media coverage your business has had in its past.

3. What does the business do?

This is where functionality needs to be the highest priority. Customers are looking for confirmation that your business is what they are looking for in the moment they are searching. You can’t afford to have this information be anything but concise, easy to find, and extremely helpful. It’s challenging to know the exact right strategy for your business but a tactic we recommend is taking a look at your closest competitors for insight.

Look at those website and assume the perspective of their customer. If you like something about the way their website works, make a note. If you find something super inconvenient or confusing, again, make a note. Have these notes inform your approach.

Conclusion

A lot of people think a website should be an online version of your business. In reality, this is virtually impossible. A website is more like a messenger for your business. It’s a tool for relaying information about the business to potential customers. If your messenger is long-winded, confusing and tries to use flashy bright colours to grab attention, the customer is not going to be engaged. If your messenger relays all the information in a simple, concise and memorable way, customers will be much more likely to engage. It is quite likely a website is the first impression the customer might have of your business—remember, you only get once chance to make a first impression!

How to Avoid Having an Ugly Website

Websites are important for every business. In today’s digital age, having accessible online information is crucial for success. Just having a website isn’t enough, though. What matters is what’s on your website.

Website content needs to be geared toward making the consumer want to interact and engage with it. So, let’s take a look at what not to do when creating an appealing website, and I’ll show you what you should do instead along the way.

You’ve read this far for one of three reasons:

You want to learn how to optimize your website for the best consumer engagement and interaction
You’re worried that your website is ugly and came here for peace of mind that it isn’t
You had nothing better to do and the catchy title of this article made you blow a little air out of your nose, which, in today’s digital age, translates to one “lol”

No matter the reason, you’re here for a solution, so let’s dive right in. Before we discuss any more, take a look at this website: http://thebiguglywebsite.com/. Don’t worry, it’s safe for work!

…

Are your eyes bleeding yet? I wouldn’t blame you.

We know your website can’t possibly look this bad, and we also know that this website is TRYING to look bad. Now, what are the chances you scrolled down to see what was listed on this site? If they gave out a million dollars at the bottom for clicking a link, chances are that you wouldn’t have walked away with a penny.

Why is this? Consumers don’t want to engage with unattractive content. Think of your own website content for a moment. If somebody looked at it and felt the same way you just felt, do you think they would stay and interact with it? Probably not.

Start by thinking of all the things you’ve hated on websites you’ve visited in the past. Chances are, one or more of these was on your list. If they weren’t, they will be now.

1. Ugly domain

Do you find it easier to go back to a website with a simple domain like website.com (an example), or do you prefer to type in randomwebsite123.org/data0=184/net%/ (another example)? You may be saying, “But hey, I just Google the name and click on the link!” Sure that might work for you usually, but would you be happy having to find your favorite and most visited websites by Googling them every single day? You’re better off having a website that people can remember if they choose to. A consumer’s first impression of a website is largely design-related, so don’t you think some of the people in that category want to see a neat and tidy domain? Of course they do!

2. Long loading times

I considered leaving a bunch of blank space here so you would have to scroll down and waste your time to prove my point, but I decided to make you read this sentence instead.

Consumers hate waiting. This is the digital age of instant information. It takes consumers only a split second to form an opinion about your website. That tiny amount of time shouldn’t be spent on a blank loading screen! Even worse than that, if there is a long loading time every time a consumer tries to interact with your website or navigate the different pages, they are going to get increasingly annoyed.

Here is the worst case scenario: You have a consumer who is ready to buy from your online shop, they start gathering up products into their cart, then they get fed up with waiting and instead buy from your competitor. Want to avoid the tragedy? Keep it fast!

3. Complicated or overwhelming interface

Does your website have too many buttons on it? Are people being bombarded with information? People are being trained to ignore huge amounts of website content due to websites crawling with ads. Keep it simple and focus on important topics or focal points that they can engage with. With plenty of consumers abandoning a site due to poor design, you can’t afford to hide your crucial information in text-garbage. Don’t lose consumers because they can’t find where you hid the crucial information on your jumbled page.

4. Automatic music or videos

Many people listen to music while they work or surf in their free time. If you’ve ever noticed a little speaker icon on the right side of your internet tabs, it means that sound is coming from that page. Many people’s first instinct is to kill that tab because it’s forcing disruptive sound onto their experience, and autoplaying audio or visual content can cause valuable consumers to leave your site.

If you have videos on your main page, great! Just make sure you let people click the play button on their own. At the very least, it will give consumers a chance to silence their other music and video sources before they listen.

5. Website doesn’t scale

Do you always look at a website on your computer, or do you sometimes use your phone or tablet? Don’t you hate it when you’re interacting with website content on your phone and you have to scroll all the way to the right to read the full line and then scroll all the way back for the next line? It’s terrible! Make sure your website bends and twists to fit every screen—this is called responsive web design, and it’s very important. If people don’t realize your website actually operates differently on their smaller screen, you’ve done something right.

Your website content is one of your most important marketing tools. Whether or not people engage can mean the difference between one dollar and one million dollars in revenue. It’s worth it to take the time to make your website beautiful.

Business Website Essentials

Telling a small business owner to “assume the perspective of your customer” is one of those classic easier said than done problems. It’s not for lack of trying, but owning a small business isn’t just a job, it’s a lifestyle. And when you put that level of passion and commitment into something, your unique familiarity with it can be tough to shake.

Yet this is the simplest way to quickly optimize your website. By deeply considering your customer’s perspective and buying journey, we can make decisions that put everything in the right place for the customer to easily and quickly complete their interaction with your business and maybe even leave a nice review to boot.

While it’s absolutely essential to have each of these elements be part of your website, the specifics of their presentation need to be in consideration of your specific customer demographics. Most notably will be the difference between information on an online store, where the priority is to drive sales, versus a traditional brick and mortar business, where the priority is to get them to visit you.

The must haves

Contact information

Much of your web traffic will be coming from customers looking to use your website as a tool to communicate with you. Whether by email, phone or in person, the information that helps them accomplish this needs to be a top priority. Placing an easily found “contact us” link in the top right corner of your website is never a bad move. But if your customers aren’t web savvy, consider putting your address, phone number and hours of operation right on the home page. Additionally, if your business location is a little off the beaten path, consider using a map application on your website to help people better understand your location.

Product information

This is a growing priority for small businesses online, as a huge number of searches now happen on mobile with the intent of “in the moment” product research, sometimes even in-store. This means that the more specific information you can have online about what you sell, the better. This may even lead to customer conversions while they are in a competitor’s store.

Keeping an up-to-date and functional product catalog online can be a lot of work, but it is most certainly worthy of consideration given the potential value. This is particularly important if your demographic skews younger and more web savvy.

Business description

Give a quick, easy-to-find snapshot of your business and history available for people interested in learning a little more about you. Keep in mind, if people are looking at this part of your website, they are likely close to buying. Make sure you put in a little marketing effort here to help seal the deal. Make it concise but include things like business history, location, relevant achievements and philosophy. It’s also not a bad idea to include customer testimonials if you have them.

Quicklinks to social channels

Social platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are all great tools to help foster a direct line of communication between your business and its biggest fans. Your website should prioritize getting those follows and likes as easy as possible by installing a quick link widget into the footer or header of your website. That way, no matter where you customer goes on the site they are always one click away from connecting with you on Social.

Content/media

It’s becoming more and more common to see small businesses feature active content strategies and it’s easy to see why:

Content is authentic – No one likes being sold to, and content is a great way for a business to build a relationship while leaving the hard sell on the shelf.
Content is made for local – A good content strategy can help a business establish itself as grounded in its local area through authentic stories that are for and about their community.
Content is hyper-targeted – Based on how you answered the first three questions your website, at least a little, is likely targeting customers at a specific part of the sales funnel. Having a fully realized content strategy allows you to add balance to your site. For example, if your site is designed to drive new sales, perhaps the content can be targeted towards customer retention by adding value to those people already in the fold.

Easy content strategy win = how-to videos

These can be extremely effective and easy to produce. Plus, creating how-to videos gives you the platform to demonstrate your expertise. Double-win if it’s related to your business.

Putting it all together with design

When considering design and layout, it’s completely appropriate to look at it as an opportunity to infuse some of your business’s personality into your website’s look and feel. But heed this warning: design is where it’s most critical to consider the customer’s perspective. Too often small business owners create a website that works perfectly for themselves while failing to consider how it will work for their customers.

Here are two top level considerations when choosing a design.

Mobile functionality is king

This has to be top of mind at every stage of design. While most modern design templates are mobile functional, it’s worth taking second looks at the ones that do it best. And if you haven’t updated your website since the inception of the smartphone, you might want to think about a redesign.

Keep it simple

You may have noticed that this article really pushes the need for priorities. With that in mind, consider putting only the most crucial information on the home page. Your home page must include easy links to: contact info, product info and business description. After that, it becomes really dependent on your goals and objectives. But when considering the perspective of your customer, oftentimes less is more.

Build for speed

By keeping things simple and prioritizing mobile functionality you are likely also building for speed. But this point is critical enough that it bares repeating. Your site needs to be fast! According to a study from Forrester Consulting 40% of shoppers will wait no longer than 3 seconds of load time before abandoning a retail website. As well, Google uses load time as factor in determining your search rank so a slow site might even be keeping customers from finding you when they look online.

Final thoughts

All in all, it’s a pretty swell time to be building a website for your business. Hosting is cost effective and secure, design templates have never looked nicer, and there is plenty of great content out there to help guide you through the process. But if you are ever curious if your website is serving you well, just follow this tip from Kevin Lao at Google: take out your phone, pull up your site and ask yourself “do you like what you see?” Now go to your closest competitor’s site and ask yourself the same question. Your answer will tell you all you need to know.