Could your website be the stumbling block that is standing in the way of your success? You will be surprised. The website forms the core of your online marketing activities, however, it is often overlooked. Oftentimes, people assume a website is just a setup and go operation. They assume that all you need to do is to install a WordPress or Shopify, add information and you are good to go. But failure to take the time to build and maintain a good website can severely negate your digital marketing efforts.

But what makes a good website?

Essentially it all boils down to three main issues;

1. Performance
2. Content
3. Ease of use

Performance

To test your website performance you can use a tool called GTMETRIX. All have to do is enter your website address.

Then click the blue “Test your site” button.

As you can see our website needs work, with regards to its structure, but all in all we are happy with the performance.

A score of C and below should worry you. Remember, people aren’t patient. They won’t wait for your website to load. If your website is slow, good luck getting any sales or leads.

Content

Here is a secret. Ready?

The internet was never built for selling things. Shocking right? It is true. The internet was built to help people access information more efficiently and communicate faster. So if you want your website to rank high on search engines, your website needs to have a lot of high-quality content. Simple, the better your content, the higher the likely hood that Google will recommend it to its users.

Once you get the traffic, then you can convert the visitors into customers and make money.

But what do we mean by quality content?

Ideally, you need at least 100 pages of well researched, well written and unique information. For example, if you sell essential oils online, you could have articles like “Benefits of essential oils”. If you do everything right SEO wise, the article will rank and get traffic. From there, the sales bit is up to you.

A good rule of thumb is to have information that is so high quality that people would want to share or reference it. Have a good look at your website, how many pages are so good and informative that a visitor could share or save them as a bookmark to read later? Then remember you need 100 of them. Stop frowning, it’s not a lot. If you create 10 pages a month, in 10 months you are done. Of course, the faster you do it, the sooner your website ranks on Google and you start to get organic traffic(This is what will make you rich, not ADs).

Also, as you create the pages, you need to create content that people actually want to consume. This involves keyword research and competitor analysis. You can spend time creating the pages but if no one is searching for the specific topic that you discuss in the pages, it’s all in vain.

If you want some help in doing keyword research, or rather some guidance, you can email me here David(dot)m(at)ahadisoft.com

Ease of use

This is mostly subjective. But ease of use has an impact on whether you get sales online. For example, a lot of your website visitors are going to be from mobile. So your website needs to be usable on a mobile device.

Actually, I would advise, as you design your website, to start with the mobile design. After your perfect it, then you can work on the desktop version. If you run an e-commerce store, your desktop version should also be very professional. People will search on their mobile devices but actually purchase from their desktop.

A great tip is to add a prominent search bar. Very few people want to click around your website. I am a good example. When I go on Jumia or Alibaba, the first thing I use is the search so that I am able to find what I am looking for.

Next, have a couple of your friends try to use your website. Ask them how easy it was to find what they were looking for.