Businesses invest a lot of time, money, and careful planning in their websites because there are many different factors to take into account when building a site. One of the most important questions you should be asking is whether your website is serving your audience. Here are some things to consider.
Does the Content Speak to Your Audience?
When writing content for your website, you want to make sure you provide all the necessary information about your company, products, and services while using the right tone and style. Ask yourself these questions as you’re developing your content:
- Does it speak to your audience in a way they can understand?
- Does it use an appropriate tone?
- Is it written in the way your users actually search?
As an example, let’s consider a dermatologist practice website.
Writing Easy-to-Understand Copy
It would be easy for a dermatologist to write content that is highly technical, speaking to all the various health conditions that are treated at the practice. However, it’s important to consider the audience’s needs. The average patient will not understand a site full of complex medical terminology.
Using the Right Tone
Regarding tone, the dermatologist practice could adopt a formal, clinical tone. However, that will probably not resonate well with prospective clients. Patients are seeking a compassionate doctor who will make them feel comfortable. To reflect that, the dermatologist’s website should adopt a more casual, friendly tone.
Writing the Way Users Search
Lastly, consider how users actually search for products or services. In the case of the dermatologist, people may be searching some of their questions online like “how much does a dermatologist cost?” or “does a dermatologist treat wrinkles?” The dermatologist practice should be addressing common questions on the website so that users will find the practice when they are searching for answers.
As you can see, there are many considerations when writing content for your website. If you’re in need of high-quality content and lack the resources or bandwidth to produce it, consider WTM Digital’s content writing services.
Is Your Website Intuitive and Easy to Navigate?
Another vital aspect to consider is your site’s navigation and structure. It should be laid out in a thoughtful, logical way that helps users travel through the conversion funnel and ultimately take an action on your website. Evaluate the overall hierarchy of the pages, the placement of calls-to-action (CTAs), and how the navigation menus are organized.
Page Hierarchy
Hierarchy refers to the way pages are categorized on your website. All sites have top-level pages such as the homepage, contact us page, and main category pages. For example, an ecommerce website that sells toys might have a homepage, customer support page, and various toy category pages like stuffed animals and board games.
Many sites also have second-tier pages categorized under top-tier pages. Going back to the toy store example, the ecommerce website might have many subcategories under stuffed animals, like dogs, cats, farm animals, and zoo animals.
Third-tier pages are categorized under second-tier pages. A common example of a third-tier page is a specific product page. For example, a Dalmatian stuffed animal toy would live under the dogs category page.
Some websites may only have top-level pages, while others have many different category, subcategory, and product pages housed under each other. Even complex websites with many pages can be easy to navigate if hierarchy is used properly.
Need help structuring your website? Our Technical and Analytics team can perform a full website audit.
Organization and Navigation
Overall organization is also important. Your website should be laid out in a logical fashion. Users need to be able to navigate easily and find what they’re looking for quickly. Your main navigation menu is valuable real estate, so only the most important pages should go there. Subpages can be housed in a secondary navigation menu. Site hierarchy and navigation go hand-in-hand.
CTA Placement
Also consider what actions you want users to take on your website and whether you are encouraging them to take that action. This includes placement and styling of calls-to-action (CTAs). For example, is your phone number highly visible? Does it stand out from the website background and does it appear on every page of the website?
These are just a few questions to consider. Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a complex and detailed initiative for any website, but the results are well worth it. By optimizing your users’ ability to perform desired actions on your site, you can see real increases in revenue and sales.
Is Your Website Fast Enough?
Page speed refers to how fast your website loads, and it is becoming more and more important from both a user experience and search engine optimization perspective. Speed has been a Google ranking factor for desktop since 2010, and as of July 2018, it is also a ranking factor for mobile searches.
Besides the SEO value of a fast website, there are also many user experience benefits. A study performed by Google found that as page load time increases from 1 second to 3 seconds, the probability of the user bouncing (leaving the site without taking any action or viewing any other pages) increases by 32 percent. As page load increases from 1 second to 5 seconds, the probability of a bounce increases by 90 percent.
If you’re not sure whether your website is up to industry speed standards, you should consider a page speed audit. WTM Digital provides detailed speed audits that will tell you what areas need to be improved and how to improve them. Contact us to inquire about an audit for your website.
Need Help With Your Website?
If you’ve identified any issues with your website content, structure, or speed, WTM Digital can help you find the right solutions. We are a full-service digital agency offering content writing, technical audits, web design and development, conversion rate optimization and more. Contact us to discuss your website’s needs and see how we can help.