What do you do the first time you step into a business? If\nyou\u2019re like most people, you probably look around and get a first impression.\nIs it clean? Organized? Does it reflect the business\u2019s brand? Do you feel\nwelcome and want to hang around for a while? All these questions and many more\ncause you to form an opinion of the business\u2014probably within about the first\nfive minutes of stepping inside. If the impression isn\u2019t the right one, you\ncould easily lose customers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this day and age, it\u2019s just as likely that a customer\u2019s first impression of your business does not come from your physical location, but your virtual one. Yes, we\u2019re talking about your website. Do you know that 75% of consumers admit to making judgments about a company\u2019s credibility based on their website design<\/a>? Over 3.5 billion Google searches are made every day<\/a>, and it\u2019s likely that hundreds of potential customers are choosing not to walk through your physical door because they don\u2019t like what they\u2019ve seen online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your website is the virtual front door to your business. When your page loads, it\u2019s the same as when a customer first steps inside a physical store. Within the first .05 seconds, they have made a decision on whether or not they feel welcome, whether it\u2019s easy to find what they\u2019re looking for, and if they can easily find someone to talk to. Do you want to ensure you\u2019re making the right impression? Here are some tips!<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Just as you would not want to create a maze for customers to navigate when they walked through your front doors, you do not want your website to be in any way confusing. Keep your navigation consistent and simple and make it easy for users to return to the home page and get back to the top of the page. You also need to make sure all links are functional (and go to the right places) and that users can easily find what they\u2019re looking for. To test this out, have a friend or or colleague log onto your website and watch over their shoulder as they navigate through it. If they seem to get frustrated or are spending too much time looking for information they want, you know you\u2019ve got some work to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the main goals of your site should be to encourage potential clients or customers to reach out to you. 44% of website visitors will leave your site if there is no contact information. Make it easy for them to get in touch by including contact forms or pop-up chatbots<\/a> as well as a prominent phone number and email address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n A single second delay in your website loading time can result in a 7% loss in version. In addition to this, 40% of web users abandon a site if it takes longer than three seconds to load. Speed is incredibly important, and you need to make sure your site loads correctly and quickly. To facilitate speed, avoid large images and files that will slow down load times and frequently test your site for loading speed on both desktop and mobile. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n 75.1 percent of U.S.-based internet users access the web on a mobile device and 48% of users say that if they find a business site that doesn\u2019t work well on mobile, they believe it\u2019s an indication the business doesn\u2019t care about their customers. You simply cannot ignore smart devices and all good web designers know that current websites need to be created mobile-first. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n When people are trying to make a decision, they turn to others \u2013especially their peers–for advice. If you have reviews and testimonials on your site, potential customers will be more likely to make a decision to use your products or services. While written testimonials are great, videos are even better! Reach out to your customers to ask for testimonials and consider using review software to easily solicit and display positive reviews of your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n So how do you know if YOUR virtual front door is giving customers the impression you want? One of the best ways to test your site is to conduct an audit. This is a perfect way to make sure you\u2019re not missing something important and to identify ways to tweak your site to make it more appealing. At Pixel Fire Marketing, we offer FREE web audits<\/a> to anyone who wants to get a better idea of how their website is performing. Not only will we score you on user experience and SEO, but we\u2019ll also take a look at SEO, conversion rates, and overall performance and security. If you have questions about our web audits, please get in touch today so we can tell you more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What do you do the first time you step into a business? If you\u2019re like most people, you probably look around and get a first impression. Is it clean? Organized? Does it reflect the business\u2019s brand? Do you feel welcome and want to hang around for a while? All these questions and many more cause […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-web-design"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4680"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6598,"href":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4680\/revisions\/6598"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Improve Your Site\u2019s Navigation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Improve Communication <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Improve Speed<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Improve Mobile <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Improve Trust and Credibility<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Putting it All Together<\/h2>\n\n\n\n