Surviving Lockdown 2: Is your website pulling its weight?

As we enter the first full week of lockdown 2, business owners will feel the effects in a variety of ways. Some -especially professional advisers – will be busier than ever, while others will be doing their best to work with another new set of restrictions. And everyone has a top tip or piece of advice on how to navigate the next four weeks. So, what can Critical Mission Computing add to the mix?

We’ve been designing websites that drive traffic and sales since 1999. We are also experts in Search Engine Optimisation and the development of Mobile Apps and Systems Integrations. We know what makes websites work. In good times and when the chips are down. And I think we can all agree that 2020 is definitely a ‘chips down’ situation.

So, is your website working as hard as it can for your business right now? There are five signs that it might need attention:

Does your website give visitors the right message?

As business owners, the calls on our time are many and varied. So once your website is operational it can be easy to tick it off the to do list and move on. But it’s the shop window of your business. It needs to showcase what you do to best advantage at all times. From the little things like keeping opening times (particularly relevant given current restrictions!), team profiles and contact details up to date. To the big stuff like making sure you show prospective clients how you can help them rather than listing your services.

Is your website easy to navigate?

Browse round your website like you’re totally new to it and know nothing about your business. Is it easy to use? Can you move between the pages without difficulty? Do all the links work? Are hyperlinks easy to distinguish from body text? Bear in mind that not everybody will start on your home page and work through your site in a logical order. They may arrive via a blog post or a services page that you’ve posted on socials. The important thing is that however visitors arrive, and wherever they land, they can easily find everything they need.

Can clients and customers find the content they are looking for?

Consider the content of your website from the point of view of visitors to the site. What information will they want and need in order to buy your products or services? It can be tempting to fill your site with the things that are important to you – the company’s journey for example. But this is not often relevant to your customers. And if they can’t find what they need from your site then they may look elsewhere!

Does your website take time to load?

This is an important one. I’m sure we can all think of a time that we’ve lost patience with a site and clicked away. The stats are alarming on this as we’re a very impatient bunch! The ideal website load time for mobile sites is 1-2 seconds! Just a two second delay in load time can lead to abandonment rates of up to 87%. There can be a variety of reasons for your site to load slowly. One of the main ones is often lots of unoptimised images.

Have your sales or engagement dropped?

Straight sales are easy to track. But deciding whether your site is a success can be measured in a number of ways. Your aim might be to get people to sign up to your mailing list or download some content. The first thing to check is whether traffic has also dropped. But there could be a number of other reasons for a drop in sales so it’s well worth investigating further.

Critical Mission Computing’s Alka Bagga, said: “We take good care of our own appearance – making the best of ourselves and updating or changing our look according to the season, current fashion and our personality. Well it’s the same with websites. They showcase your business personality so they need to look their best”

If you’d like to take advantage of Lockdown 2 to give your website a makeover then why not get in touch?