Your business website is one of the most important tools you have to grow your business. It’s a central hub for information about your company, products and services, and can be used to drive sales and leads. But with so much at stake, it’s important to make sure your website is set up for success. Here are some things you need to know.
Migration Is Important
Website migration means moving a website from one server to another. This is important because it ensures the user experience isn’t disrupted and all of the internal links still work after moving servers. To illustrate how this can cause problems, imagine if you moved your website from www.yourbusiness.com to www.newdomain.com – all of the links on your website would now be broken, and users would be taken to a page that doesn’t exist. This is not good for business because it means your site’s SEO will suffer and will confuse website visitors.
Website migration can be a challenge. But with the proper guide to getting a website migration right, you should be able to back up all your content, databases and settings with ease. One of the best ways to do this is to use a migration plugin.
Secure Your Website
One of the most important things you can do for your website is to make sure it’s secure. This means using strong passwords, ensuring your site is up-to-date with the latest security patches and using an SSL certificate. An SSL certificate encrypts all the data that passes between your website and the user’s browser, ensuring that any information entered – such as credit card details – is safe and secure.
Make sure you also use a firewall to protect your website from attacks. A firewall will block anyone who is trying to access your website without permission, keeping your site safe from harm.
Optimize your Website
As your website evolves, it’s important to stay up-to-date with the latest technology. This means making sure you choose a hosting provider that offers the latest performance features, such as HTTP/2 and PHP 7 or higher. It also means optimizing the site itself – making it easier for search engine crawlers like Googlebot to crawl and index your site by keeping it well organized and accessible.
With the right hosting provider, you shouldn’t need to do anything special to optimize your website. But if you do run into trouble, make sure you use a caching plugin and keep up with Google’s guidelines on how best to organize and structure your site for optimal performance.
Your Website Should Be Mobile Friendly
Mobile web usage has overtaken desktop usage, and this trend is only increasing. This means that if your website isn’t optimized for mobile devices, you’re losing business. According to Google, half of all online shopping carts are abandoned on mobile devices. Even worse, 40 per cent of smartphone users say they will only return to a website if it’s mobile-friendly.
That’s why it’s so important to make sure your website is responsive – that is, it looks good and functions well on any device, from desktop computers to smartphones and tablets. You can test your website’s responsiveness using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool.
Go for Speed
People are incredibly impatient. People expect information fast, especially on the web where they’re used to getting it immediately. You should always aim to have a fast website. Not only is this good for the user experience, but it’s also important for your SEO. Google has stated that page speed is a ranking factor, so the faster your website loads, the higher you’ll rank in search engine results pages.
There are a number of ways to improve your website’s page speed, such as using a caching plugin and compressing images. But the best way to go is to choose a web host that offers top-of-the-line server infrastructure, such as cloud hosting on Google Cloud Platform.
Use Google Plus
Your website’s Google Plus page is a great way to increase the number of people finding your business online. Not only does it appear in search engine results, but it also means you have a branded presence on Google – another ranking factor.
Make sure your Google Plus page is up-to-date and includes all the relevant information, such as your website’s address, hours of operation and contact information. You can also use Google Plus to share updates about your business, post photos and videos and connect with customers.
Social Media
In addition to your Google Plus page, you should also connect your website with other social media sites. This can be a great way to get your website in front of a wider audience. So make sure you’re taking advantage of all the major social networks, including:
Twitter is a great way to build awareness about your business, connect with customers and share information. It’s also an excellent platform for news about the industry you operate in, so make sure you join in on relevant conversations. But when sharing links, it’s important to use Twitter’s card technology. This will allow you to display rich information about your website, such as photos and a description, when people tweet about your site. You can also use Twitter’s lead generation cards to collect email addresses from potential customers.
LinkedIn is a great platform for business-to-business (B2B) marketing. It’s a place where you can share your company’s story, build relationships with potential customers and partners, and find employees. But LinkedIn is also a search engine, so make sure your profile is optimized for search results. This includes filling out all the relevant information, including your company description, location, website address and contact information.
LinkedIn has a number of other features that can increase traffic to your website. For example, you can use LinkedIn Publisher to share articles with connections in your network. You can also create groups to discuss relevant topics with potential leads or answer questions from customers.
When it comes to social media, Instagram is one of the fastest-growing networks with over 400 million monthly users. It’s also highly visual, so images are very effective when it comes to getting your website in front of new eyes.
You should use hashtags to increase the chances of people finding you, especially when you’re sharing content related to your industry. And be sure to include a link to your website in your profile bio so people can easily find it.
Creating a website for your business is a big decision. But with the right planning and execution, you can create a website that’s not only visually appealing but also optimized for search engines and mobile devices. By following the tips in this article, you’ll be on your way to having a website that’s perfect for your business.