Invest in Your Website

People say “I have a website but now what do I do with it?

Read on to find out why its important to invest in your website.

Having a website is a great tool for engaging with your customers and gaining new ones; which is why it’s important to keep it up to date and make sure that the contact details are correct.

We have all become accustomed to not having to wait anymore; smart phones keep us connected 24/7, Uber means we now know exactly where our taxi is and how long we’ll have to wait for it and Twitter has changed the way businesses engage with their customers.

Your customers expect to be able to contact you quickly and with little effort. Even if we know a web address we tend to rely on Google to take us where we want to go; to do this Google uses the contact information held on your website. They will also check your company name, telephone numbers, email address and links to any social media profiles you may have. Which is great – you want your customers (and potential customers) to be able to find you; which is why it’s important that you invest time in maintaining your website.

There’s nothing better than a real-life example, I’m going to take you through how the website is currently set up and detail recommendations for improvements.

The example I’m going to use is Masons Butchers located in Bournemouth; they are a small family run butchers. A search on Google returns the company website in top position, followed by directory listings (both positive);

Google has also returned a business listing display for the company on the right hand side of the page. This displays a business listing for the company, shop photos, Google map and street view; as well as reviews, business address and telephone number and the opening hours of the shop. All of this is key information for potential customers and easy for them to find.

However, there are no links to any social media sites, does this mean that the shop does not have a social media presence? There appears to be a mention of a Facebook page, but no other platform – this is a potential improvement, but more about that later….

The website “http://www.masonsbutchers.co.uk/” is a good basic site; however it is lacking some important details which we will now discuss;

Some real positives are that the opening hours are clear and easy to see, the physical address is listed on the site along with a Google map link; however this is listed below the fold meaning that visitors to the site need to scroll down to see it. It looks like it may not have been updated in a while as the annual break closure dates are 18 months (at time of writing) out of date. The favicon used for the site is just the generic version.

Moving on to the Facebook page:

It appears to have been neglected, there are no images on here, no contact information and minimal likes and visits, however all of this is easy to fix.

Join us in part 2 where we will be covering how to fix this and get more interaction with potential customers.