4 Steps to Get Your Website Ready for 2013

The New Year is a time to turn over a new leaf and reflect on the changes we would like to see in the coming year. This time of year is also a good time to reflect on the changes you would like to see in your website. Whether your resolve is to increase brand awareness, drive more traffic, generate more leads, or all of the above, these four improvements will help get your website in tip-top shape for the coming year.

Go Mobile

If you’re like most companies, you have a website but it isn’t mobile-friendly. If your website is not yet mobile-friendly, on top of damaging your reputation it could be costing you quite a bit of new business. With mobile local searches on a steady rise, it has never been more important for businesses to have a mobile-friendly website.

Update Your Look

If it’s been a few years since your website’s design was updated, it may be time for a facelift. Consider hiring a professional Tampa web design company to update your design. Your website’s design is one of its most important aspects. Dated and unprofessional designs can leave a bad impression on prospective customers, and can also contribute to a very unpleasant user-experience.

Trim Down

Has your website gotten a little “big” over the years? Lose the extra baggage and become more appealing to your target audience by cutting out unnecessary and outdated content that is not relevant to prospective customers. This simple improvement can also help increase rankings, as the search engines learn that searchers find your content useful.

Keep It Simple

Take a fresh look at your website. Are you able to easily decipher what actions you want visitors to take? Are your pages stuffed with lots of content and images? Do you find it difficult to find what you’re looking for? One quick and easy improvement is to clean up cluttered pages on your website. Try to avoid cramming a lot of images or too much information on any single page. Information is good, but too much can be overwhelming and turnoff prospective customers.

Now that you know how to begin improving your website for the coming year, keep in mind that your website is not static and should be improved continuously. Use traffic metrics and user-feedback to learn which elements of your site are helping you reach your objectives, and which elements need improvement.

Looking for a Web design company in Tampa to help give your website the improvements it needs for success? Give us a call at (866) 611-6267, or complete our contact request form to speak with one of our digital marketing consultants today.

How Are You Measuring Your SEO Campaign’s Success?

Engagement Metrics: Beyond Rankings

When it comes to SEO, most companies focus on rankings as a measure of success. While rankings can provide a relative measure of success, engagement metrics can provide much more insight into your SEO campaign’s overall performance than rankings alone. There are a number of engagement metrics a Tampa SEO company should use to analyze and monitor your SEO campaign. Three of the most important of these metrics include your bounce rate, average time on site, and conversion rate.

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of users that are directed to a landing page on your site and “bounce” or leave without visiting any other pages. Your bounce rate is a good indicator of how well or poorly your landing pages are performing, and is very useful in determining the quality of traffic being directed to those landing pages.

A high bounce rate is not good. This means that the traffic being directed to your site is, a.) not finding what they are looking for, b.) not engaged enough to venture onto other pages within your site, or c.) not part of your intended target audience. When looking to increase the quality of traffic to your site, this metric is a great tool for evaluating how well your site engages users, and if those users fall within your target audience.

Average Time On Site

The average time on site metric is pretty self explanatory. This metric measures the average amount of time users spend on your Web site. The longer, the better. If users find your Web site to be easy to navigate and the content to be of significant value, they will be more likely to stay on it longer. The longer users stay on your site, the more opportunity your Web site has to convert them.

Conversion Rate

The conversion rate of your landing pages is one of the most important indicators when determining the quality of traffic on your site. A high conversion rate means that a high percentage of users fall within your target audience, find your site’s content to be useful and relevant, and understand your call-to-action (CTA).

Conversions lead to sales, and sales lead to profit. In order to see a positive impact on your bottom line, your Web site needs to be able to convert visitors into customers. To increase your site’s conversion rate, consider making your Web site more attractive to users by making your site more user friendly and incorporating content that is compelling for your target audience. Also, if you have a competitive advantage, make sure users are aware of it, and draw attention to calls-to-action by using vibrant colors like bright red or orange.

In summary, when evaluating the success of your SEO efforts, rankings are just the beginning. Look to these three engagement metrics for deeper insight into your campaign’s overall success.

Leverage Digital Media is a local SEO company in Tampa. If you need help with your search marketing campaign, please call us at (866) 611-6267, or complete our contact request form.