5 Most Common Missed Website Opportunities We See Businesses Making

missed-opportunities-website-train-leaving

Pursue these common missed website opportunities and find sweet success with your online efforts.

1. Missing Strategy / Being Thought-less

I’m reminded of the classic line asked of you while checking out at the grocery store: “Did you find everything ok?”. Great, I’ve got 6 anxious people behind me in line and now is the time to help me locate curry powder?

We see companies forming their web presences in the same manner. You need to have thoughtful strategic intent behind every part of your website.

2. Forgetting to Track Traffic or Analyze It

It never ceases to amaze me when I discover a new client has never looked at their analytics or, even worse, has none at all.

It would be like a running a restaurant with the lights out. You wouldn’t know if the restaurant was busy or not. You can’t tell if potential customers are being served. You have no idea if table 10 got the correct order.

You can’t optimize and improve what you don’t track!

3. Not Pursuing Snappy Site-Speed

How fast a web page loads is key to a great user experience and whether people stick around to dig further. The difference between a 2-second page load and a 4-second page load can massively affect your site success. (Here’s a tool we like to check site speed)

4. Letting the Site’s Content Go Stale

Blogging is hard! (Here you go: 4 Blogging Tips) Your company may be fast-moving so keeping the service and team pages updated is a never-ending chore. But wow, can it make a big difference in how people judge your brand. (Don’t forget Social Media!)

Picture this…you look up a local restaurant. The last post on the restaurant’s Facebook page is from two years ago. Half the items on the menu are no longer made or the price has changed. You’ll likely move on to another restaurant option.

Some firms neglect their websites in the same fashion. Your website is an online representation of your offline brand. It is likely to be one of the first and most important impressions of your brand!

5. Neglecting A/B Testing and Conversion Optimization

This one is hard and the most excusable in this list. However, if you have a sufficient level of traffic and clear next steps (e.g. contact forms, email lists, etc.) there may be huge missed opportunity to improve your pitch.

As always, we’re happy to chat and see if we’d be a great fit to help your firm capture opportunities.

Did you catch our recent series on IT vs. Marketing

Why Your Website Needs to be Secured with HTTPS (in Layman’s Terms)

Don’t miss the boat getting your website secured with HTTPS! Here’s why…

Around 6 years ago very few sites were mobile-friendly. We’ve had a revolution and now every website needs to be usable and pleasant experience on mobile.

In similar fashion, we’re at a turning point for all websites being “secured” (HTTPS) using SSL Certificates.

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What is SSL / HTTPS?

It is basically a protocol that means any traffic to-and-from your website is encrypted and if it is intercepted it cannot be understood.

Your site either gets accessed using HTTP or HTTPS. The secure version, HTTPS will usually show a trust-gaining green lock in the browser. The “S” in HTTPS stands for “Secure” – it should all makes sense now…

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If you visit an unsecured website and fill out a contact form while on McDonald’s WiFi, anyone else on that network can see all your traffic and what you submitted – if the site is not HTTPS. You can see how this is a problem!

The 6 Reasons You Need to Join the SSL Pivot Point

1. Gain Better Search Rankings

In an effort to encourage best practice and protect their users,  Google sees sites being secure as a minor ranking signal. Ranking for keywords is hard, this could give you a small boost.

2. Avoid Embarrassing “Insecure Site” Warnings

The Chrome browser team recently announced that starting in January there will be insecure warnings on site login pages that aren’t SSLed. This could be a blot on your brand and isn’t a good reflection to the user. In the future it seems likely that securing an entire site will be best practice.

3. Security Contributes to Brand Trust

Having that green lock in the browser and seeing that your site is secured may help users trust you more highly if this is their first impression.

4. You Care About Your Website’s Visitors

Even if you aren’t collecting credit card details, SSNs, or private details…you want to guard your users. Sometimes little details could help a hacker build a profile on them and do something nefarious. We’ve even had clients whose customers couldn’t access an insecure site – usually for industries like military or government. If your site isn’t secure, your users’ traffic is wide open to any governments, shady monitoring outfits, and hackers.

5. Keep Your Own WordPress Admin Secure

While the WordPress Dashboard / admin area does have some security features, you are still transmitting your logins insecurely when you login and are making changes to your site.

6. Could Help Your Website Load More Quickly

I don’t need to even say why that is an awesome thing. The technologies that work with HTTPS and your browser now mean that an SSL certificate won’t slow your site down but could actually make it faster for users!

 

Your Next Steps to Get Secured

Migrating from HTTP to HTTPS is becoming inevitable. There is so much value in switching that it is already a no-brainer.

If your WordPress site is not secured and able to use HTTPS, reach out to us and we can create a plan to migrate. Typically the certificates cost $50-250/year. However, you can now get an SSL Certificate for free using Let’s Encrypt. We use SSL for all new WordPress hosting accounts, it is becoming a must-have feature.