The Local Marketing Stack

Website (UX)

Zone 2 • Difficulty: • Initial Cost: $100+

It’s important to put your best foot forward with your website — 60% of consumers are less likely to buy from a small business that offers a poor website experience.  In addition to representing your brand visually, your website should be designed to convert visitors into customers.

To that end, here are some key User Experience (UX) considerations:

• No “splash” page
  If the primary page on your domain has a link that says “Enter Here” or “Skip Intro,”  delete that page entirely. Visitors hate those kinds of pages, and they’re absolutely crippling to your Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
• Responsive and mobile-friendly
  The term “responsive” means that your website should respond automatically to the device a visitor is using to browse it — pinching and scrolling to zoom in and out should not be required on a mobile device or tablet.  In addition, your site should load quickly so that impatient visitors don’t bounce before they’ve even viewed content.
• Clear navigation
  The structure of your site should be obvious to visitors, with your most important pages linked from your primary navigation and a unique page for each of your primary products or service lines.
• Prominent contact information and strong calls to action
  Make it easy for visitors to contact you (and clear that you want them to contact you). Include your address (if you’re a brick-and-mortar business) and phone number in the header and footer of each page, and make sure that your contact forms require the fewest number of fields possible.