It's a simple question - is your website doing what it should be doing? There's so much more to websites than looking good and sassy design, so here are some helpful  tips to help you answer this hot question and give you ideas as to where you could improve your website performance...

1. Make it pretty and keep up the interest

Having a visually appealing website that's not dominated by slabs of heavy or over elaborate editorial content is extremely important. Your Home page needs to grab attention. Give it gorgeous images, evocative content that makes people want to explore some more, and tell people who you are, what you do and why you do it quickly, easily and in clear, understandable language. Keep it simple. Grab attention and keep it. Retain those eyes by directing them easily and quickly to all the information they need to figure out that a) you know what you are doing and are an expert, b) are professional and have outstanding bona fides and c) are approachable and there to help them. Less is more - a Home page that's too busy and confusing is going to lose the engagement.

2. Check your SEO

What's SEO? It's search engine optimisation - a system that works with search engines to help improve your ranking in search results, improving traffic to your website in the process. It uses keywords - words and combinations of words that searchers enter into search engines that in terms of SEO are used to help improve where you rank on a search engine (the goal is to be at the top of search engine results!) So you need to check whether your SEO is doing its job. This can be done through an SEO audit that will examine how your website is optimised and whether your keywords are doing their jobs. You can also get an idea of SEO efficacy by looking at the analytics for your website.

3. Optimise and refresh your content

Your content needs to speak to your SEO (and vice versa) to help with your rankings. It also needs to be refreshed and updated regularly to help reach that all-important high ranking where search engine results and traffic are concerned. In fact, content is equally if not more important than SEO. Without it, your website is just a lifeless husk with zero personality and "soul". Getting your content right is of critical importance, from the Home page to the Contact Us page and everything in between. Done right, and in keeping with your brand voice, your website content is a key driver of your conversion rate - how many sales you get from website engagement. Generally speaking, less is more when it comes to website content (unless it's blogs, see below!) Keep it simple, keep it straightforward but don't be afraid to add lots of zest and personality, if that's what your brand dictates!

4. Blog it

There are lots of ways to refresh content, and the easiest is to have a blog page where regular, fresh and (this is important) original content is posted. Why original? Because cut and paste doesn't go down well with search engines and can actually hamper your ranking. Don't just throw blogs together - think about them, and if you can't write them, find someone who can because great, well-written blogs will do wonders for your website, especially when they speak directly to your SEO and keywords. Ideally, blogs need to be longer rather than shorter. Yes, that's absolutely NOT a pork pie. The longer the better. Current trends show anything over 500 words is good for improving ranking. Over 1000 words is even better! So don't be afraid of what we call "long form" content - it's an absolute winner when it comes to getting your brand where you need it to be.

5. Cross pollinate

Spread the love across all of your content platforms and get everything to point back to your website. Now take that to the next level and develop a digital marketing strategy that helps you connect your website, social media, content marketing, email marketing, newsletters and every bit of content you can muster to drive your conversion rate ever upwards through clever conversion funnels. Make your content work hard for you. You won't regret any investment you make into good content. Ever.

If you've got any questions or need advice, feel free to get in touch!