In the digital age, where technology reigns supreme, a website is an essential business resource and marketing tool for brands. In this post, we’ll look at a few ways — from improved web hosting to search engine optimisation — for you to increase the efficiency of your website.
Billions of people access the internet every day, which is not only astounding; it also means that by owning a website, you have the ability to reach a huge global audience. For business owners, having a website isn’t just useful. It’s become a necessity for any company that wants to become an authority in its chosen industry.
With that said, merely owning a website isn’t enough to thrive. To give yourself the best chance of both short and long-term success, it’s vital to make sure every aspect of your site is as efficient as it can be. Doing so helps your brand to grow, for sure — but it also enhances your website in a variety of ways.
Content is King
The content of your website has a very important job, which is to provide substance to every page and speak directly to your audience. Well-written web copy is a continual sales pitch for users navigating your website, giving your brand a voice and creating a sense of excitement about your product or services. Poorly-written content is like a bad book. You’ll struggle to finish a few pages and have no interest in what comes next.
Another form of content is a blog, which started out as a sort of digital journal but has evolved into the ideal platform for a company looking to connect with its audience and improve as a brand. A blog keeps your customers excited about the brand and makes them want to keep checking for new content, substantially enhancing your chances of profiting from their interest.
It’s also worth noting that writing a blog has fantastic SEO benefits, which we’ll talk about in detail later. This allows you to rank higher on Google and, in the process, create more opportunities to entice new customers.
Good Website Hosting is Essential
When you first create a website, there are a lot of decisions to be made, but one of the first and most crucial steps is to purchase web hosting services. This provides you with access to a server and resources (bandwidth and memory) so that you can get your site up and running. In the early days of owning a website, it’s natural to be wary of costs, so you may have chosen the cheapest option. There’s no doubt this will have benefited you in regards to budget, but that’s where the benefits stop, and a cheap website hosting service (shared hosting) can lead to several problems.
Performance issues such as slow loading times and unexpected downtime can be a severe problem. Both will frustrate your customers and send them straight to the welcoming arms of your competitors. Upgrading to VPS servers or dedicated servers provides your own dedicated resources to massively improve efficiency and reliability. That means your website will be quick, hassle-free and experience little to no downtime.
Another issue is security. Cyber attacks cost businesses a lot of money every year, so it’s safe to say you don’t want to be joining the list of victims. Aside from the financial impact, it can also make customers lose faith in your company and severely affect your reputation — something that can be almost impossible to recover. Upgrading from shared hosting, where you’ll be sharing a server and resources with other websites, means you won’t be exposed or vulnerable to any of their cybersecurity problems.
SEO is Vital for Business Marketing
We briefly mentioned ‘SEO’ earlier, and it’s something that you — as a website or business owner — should pay very close attention to. It stands for search engine optimisation and consists of several marketing techniques used to help websites rank higher on search engines. Doing so will make it a lot easier for potential customers to stumble upon your site and create more opportunities for you to earn money, especially if you have an eCommerce site and rely on online sales.
Although the concept may sound quite complicated, there are a few ways to improve your site’s SEO without a lot of effort. Publishing content that’s relevant to your industry and doing so on a regular basis is a fantastic place to start. You should also use keywords relating to your industry and/or company, as well as adding backlinks to high-authority websites. The combination of the two will tell search engines that your site is relevant and a reliable source of information.
