5 Ways to Optimize Your Website

There’s a lot of talk these days about SEO. But what does it really mean, and is it something that small businesses should be thinking about?

First, a definition. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is any number of best practices that help improve a website’s search engine ranking. The accepted wisdom is that the higher in the list of results that your website shows up, the more traffic it’ll receive.

But while it’s true that improved rankings will lead to more traffic, we often find ourselves asking clients what that traffic will do once it gets to their website. And in many cases, we end up recommending SEO as the last step in “optimizing” a website.

Our thinking is this: if your website could do a better job helping your business sell, then let's optimize it for sales effectiveness first, and search engine ranking second. We call this Sales Optimization.

Here are 5 ways to optimize your website:

Push your products or services to the forefront. If it takes more than a click for a visitor to learn what your business sells, it’s too many.

Create a path to conversion. Give visitors to the site a way to engage with your business by requesting information or making a purchase.

Position your contact info consistently. Maybe it’s always in the header, the sidebar, or the footer. Wherever it is, make it easy to find and include an email link.

Use Analytics. Google has a great tool that can tell you how much traffic your website is getting, and which pages are most popular. It can also tell you where your traffic is coming from. This is valuable information that can help you market more effectively.

Implement SEO practices. Yes, this is the last step. Once you’ve optimized your website from a sales perspective, then go ahead and shoot for a higher ranking. You’ll get more out of all of that additional traffic.

If you have questions about Sales Optimization or Search Engine Optimization, give us a call or send us an email. We’d be happy to chat about your website and make some recommendations!