A simple, well-designed website is the MOST efficient and cost-effective way to market your products and services. But knowing which aspects to prioritize, who to call and why it matters in the first place can feel incredibly overwhelming.
As an added challenge, although most customers WANT to buy local products and support small businesses—they don’t always know where to look.
Small businesses, especially older establishments, tend to rely heavily on word of mouth and other forms of traditional marketing, while social media and digital marketing take a back seat due to a lack of time or resources.
As a result, most small to medium-sized companies suffer from an inconsistent to non-existent online presence that severely limits their ability to reach new customers.
And, it’s challenges like these facing Calgary business owners that tend to be the most significant obstacles keeping valuable new customers from finding them.
Most Calgary businesses aren’t equipped with the knowledge they need to fully leverage what having a small business website can offer.
But if you’re willing to invest the time and resources into improving these three elements of your website, you’ll be miles ahead of your competitors–obtaining new customers.
This is why having a website covering the three basics we’ll discuss today can make you a lot of money.
So, if you’re having trouble knowing where to focus to get the most out of your website—this one’s for you.
Today, let’s demystify the process by breaking down the three crucial website elements that impact your bottom line.
From content to performance, the top three most important website elements for Calgary small business owners to prioritize in order are;
- Site Speed and Performance
- Effective, Accessible Navigation
- Fresh, Informative Content
And the reasoning for this is actually pretty simple and actionable.
Site Speed and Performance
First impressions are everything. When potential customers click on a link to your website, you have a tiny window of time to catch their interest, especially when you are a small business in a competitive market like Calgary.
And, in today’s fast-paced online world, your users have many options. So, if your offer isn’t meeting their expectations, they can always find something else.
This is why the last thing you want is a website that loads painfully slowly.
When it comes to bounce rates—pages stuffed with low-quality, irrelevant content are another significant factor that will immediately make a user click off your site.
So, it’s important to assess these split-second decision-making moments and ensure you’re getting the most out of your website.
If you don’t have this first touchpoint covered, you’ll kill your chance to snag the attention of potential customers and discourage them from ever returning to your website. All before they’ve had a chance to look at the beautiful website you probably paid good money for.
Don’t get disqualified before pitching why a customer wants your product or service. If you’re going to pay for any kind of website update—invest in a site audit and then take the recommended steps.
A fast, clean website that loads quickly should be your number one priority. And, a site audit is the process you need to make strategic, informed improvements to your web pages.
Which is going to mean optimizing how your website;
- Caches files
- Loads scripts
- Optimizes images and multimedia files
- Handles database queries
And other elements of your backend that impact site performance. This is especially important if you need to determine how well your site performs.
Many older websites aren’t usually equipped with the necessary tools to track performance metrics, which is where a fresh site audit can be the most beneficial.
Full audits can inform which aspects of your website need more user testing to identify necessary improvements while helping you lay the foundation for your strategy and web development needs moving forward.
Whether you manage your site audit in-house or by partnering with an expert SEO team, you’ll need someone who understands backend optimization and strategic user testing.
Don’t let an outdated website hold your business back by taking the first step and getting your site audited!
Effective Site Navigation
Okay, so let’s say you’ve done your site audit. You’ve found and fixed any issues dragging down your perceived load time and the overall performance of your website.
Now what?
The second most important element to prioritize is clear, easy-to-understand Navigation paths for website visitors. As a small business, you want navigating your site to be as intuitive as humanely possible.
If your products, services, and general information aren’t readily available and easy to find, this will create a lot of frustration for your end users, which will then transfer directly to how they feel about your brand.
Thankfully, improving site navigation is relatively simple. Most of the time, it simply means ensuring;
- Key offerings are always front and center.
- Contact info like your business name, address, phone number and email address are readily available.
- Your menu system is shallow and focused.
- Relevant, informative content is titled correctly and is easy to find.
- CTA’s are written in clear, consistent language that’s easy to understand.
- Elements are grouped and labelled in a way that’s logical and easy to follow.
Your end user should never have to dig too deep to find the information they need or the services you want them to see. Reaching out to contact your business should be effortless!
Once you’ve achieved this, site visitors can find what they need immediately instead of clicking off after giving up on using your services.
The things you’re looking to improve if you want a website that drives sales include;
- Accessibility
- Mobile Responsive Web Pages and Applications
- Intuitive Interface Design
Once you’ve sorted that out, you’ll be on your way to crushing it in the Calgary Small business market.
And, as a bonus— once you’ve got your leads to prospects to buyers pipeline planned out from start to finish, you’ll have the perfect testing ground for tweaks and optimizations that can increase your conversion rate exponentially.
Fresh, Informative Content
Okay, let’s say you’ve already;
- Done your site audit
- Analyzed user behaviour
- Improved the flow of your navigation
AND your website is delivering fast, clean load times consistently.
Well, then, you’re ready to tackle your website’s third most important element— the content.
On a surface level, well-written meta tags and descriptions are critical to getting potential customers out of search and onto your website.
While page load times and accessible navigation help feed your end-users the helpful content, they want to keep them on the site as long as possible.
HOWEVER. The most innovative, cleanest, easy-to-navigate website in the world will only be helpful to you if there is a solid backlog of quality content and service information available within the pages you’re serving to potential customers.
As a small Calgary business owner, what you want to focus on are the following;
- Strong Call to Action’s (CTA) Every Step of the Way
- Relevant, Specific Content Tailored to Your Ideal Customer’s Pain Points and Search Behavior
- Persuasive Sales and Landing Pages at the End of Every Buyer’s Journey
- High-value, educational content.
Not only will these things capture a potential buyer’s attention, but they will also persuade them to consider your business AND help them remember your website.
These components can also help you organically outrank other competitors in the same niche who still need to prioritize their SEO and search presence. But you’re going to need a combination of length and quality to make your content work for you.
Use Local-First Content to Outcompete Similar Businesses In Your Area
If you want to go the extra mile, you’ll also want to ensure the content you’re serving is specific to your area.
Frequently mentioning local business problems can help ensure your content doesn’t have to compete as heavily with similar but broad topics in the same niche.
It will signal to search more holistically who should be seeing your content based on their location, which is especially helpful if your business doesn’t have a physical brick-and-mortar location.
And it can help set you apart as a credible expert not only in your category but in your community as well.
What to Consider When You’re Ready to Update Your Website
But you’re probably wondering.
If you want to boost traffic to your website and generate new leads, do you call an SEO Specialist, a Web Developer, a Copywriter or all three?
When you’re on a tight budget, questions like how often you should update your website and knowing which expenses you can put off for later are important considerations.
Who Do I Hire to Support My Site?
If you need help determining what kind of content would work best for you or how to turn a broad topic into a local-specific one, hire a Copywriter!
In this case, you’ll be looking for a mix of skill sets and the following job titles;
- SEO Specialist/Expert, etc.
- Copywriter
- Web Developer
Sometimes, like when you’re working with Scour Web, a company will have all these positions filled.
In others, you may have to dig to find the right people to work on each aspect of your site that needs improvement.
But overall, a mix of experience writing strong sales copy, creating effective sales funnels and managing targeted, resourceful SEO strategies are the essential skills required if you’re going to get the most bang for your buck.
And investing in the right team can save you thousands of dollars in the long run.
How Often Do I Need To Review Or Update My Website
The simplest answer to how often you need to update your website is as often as needed.
Some websites can go up to a year or two without experiencing major issues or needing updates.
Some websites are constantly updated due to a flow of never-ending new content, services or simply an intense backend management system.
It is all highly dependent on what your site is for, how it’s built and how much time and effort you want to spend updating it regularly.
However, you’ll know it’s time to update when;
- Loading pages on your site feels slow or leggy
- There are significant changes in user behaviour or a decrease in traffic
- Visiting your website on mobile is difficult or extremely frustrating
- Links on your website are broken or lead to non-existent pages
- Content on your website is outdated or no longer relevant
- Your business goals have significantly shifted or changed focus
Tips for Performing an Effective Site Audit
Unsure how easy or difficult your website is to navigate for the average user? Then, this is the perfect time to take that site audit information and perform some good old-fashioned user testing.
Behavioural reports, flow charts, and a clear understanding of the path you want potential buyers to take are all going to be essential parts of crafting your Navigation Experience.
Especially when you pay close attention to drop-off points and areas where users may need clarification about where to go next to find what they want.
Whether you’re using Google Analytics, Hot Jar, Crazy Egg, User Testing or something like Mouseflow, you’ll want to clearly outline the behavioural analysis goals. So you can understand what specific aspects of user behaviour need to be examined and improved.
The tools you use to achieve this aren’t necessarily as important as having a clear, thoughtful methodology for reviewing and making changes that will give you a comprehensive overview of how well your site is doing.
Conclusion
Maintaining your website is an ongoing process. But if you’re willing to invest in the tools and expertise needed to regularly analyze the data, make improvements, and monitor the impact on user behaviour, you can improve your site with extreme efficiency.
Intelligent, efficient website design and management are essential when competing in a small competitive niche or a large community like Calgary.
But if you must focus on only three essential elements, make it site speed and performance, effective navigation and fresh, informative content. These three things will get you the most bang for your buck.
And, if you’re unsure where to start, consider assembling a team or collaborating with an established company that understands how to deliver thoughtful, comprehensive strategies that will help you drive the traffic you need to book calls and make sales.
