In today’s digital age, your business website is an integral, core part of your company. Your website is the place where many new customers will find out for the first time about your brand, products and services and where existing customers can find out all the crucial information that they need. On top of that, your website can play a core part in bringing in profit to your business, either through Google’s Local Search results or advertisements leading to your site where customers can purchase products or services online. With online shopping on the rise and mobile shopping becoming increasingly more popular as a result, having a business website which performs well is of utmost importance.
Mobile-Friendliness
With more and more people ditching their PC computers and laptops in favour of mobile devices such as tablets, smartphones and hybrid laptops, having a site which works well on any device has never been more important. If you’ve ever tried to use your smartphone to visit a site that isn’t mobile-friendly or responsive, you’ll know how annoying it can be having to zoom in just to read text, let alone fill in forms or shop. Recent updates to Google’s algorithm also state that sites that are mobile-friendly are favoured, meaning that failing to provide your users with this service could significantly affect your ranking in the SERPs, no matter how well you work on other aspects of SEO.
Loading Time
Customers have always hated having to wait around. From long queues to extended delivery times, customers who are kept waiting are more likely to find products and services elsewhere than those who are given a fast, speedy service. Because of this, the time that your site takes to load is even more crucial than you may realise. If you’ve ever clicked on a site and it’s still loading after a few minutes, you’ll know exactly just how frustrating it can be. It’s for this exact reason that Google have also added an update to their algorithm that gives sites with fast loading time more favour in the SERPs, meaning that the quicker your site takes to load up, the more chance you have of ranking higher. Not only that, but it’s good customer service, too – customers who have to wait around for your site to fully load are more likely to give up and go elsewhere.
Ease of Navigation
Nobody likes to try and navigate a website that’s set out like a maze, or doesn’t have clear signposts as to where everything is. This is why, when designing your website, you should always keep the customer at the front of your mind. Ease of navigation ensures that your visitors don’t run into any trouble on your site and end up frustrated due to a poor layout or instructions. In order to get a website that meets the criteria needed in today’s competitive environment, it’s often essential to hire a professional web design and development company such as www.thewebsitegroup.co.uk, which offers affordable price plans for startups.
Which features do you always expect from a website? Let us know in the comments.
