Most businesses have a website as they know they need one. Very often though, they don’t get the benefit they should from it, as they really have no idea why they even have one. Things like contact information, most people have and understand (though you would be surprised how many don’t), but some other things? They have no idea what they are leaving on the table and how much business they are leaving behind. We will assume you have at least a professional looking website, so we will skip that part. Here are a few things that really need to be done to most websites but people never seem to do it.

Optimize speed

Really people, if it takes 30 seconds for your site to load, do you really think people are going to wait around? You need to optimize it and put it on a faster server if you need to. You can also use a free service like Cloudflare to help speed things up as well. Reducing the size and optimizing your graphics in the easiest. In the old days we used to say if a webpage was bigger than 60k it was too big, these days you would have a hard time getting it that small, but just make a small effort and you can speed up your load time considerably. Most of this is a one-time effort, and well worth it for people that come to your site. If you are selling something especially, it if takes 10 seconds for every item to load when they click on it, they will be gone and it’s a lost customer.

Get rid of the slider

Business people and marketers absolutely love the sliding header, as you can put so much information there, all your products and specials, etc. They are pretty much worthless and it is in fact a negative to your site. They take up the whole top of your site and nobody will sit there and read them. You are better off getting rid of it and moving your products higher. Why are people going to your site? Find out and give them that at the top instead.

Have people critique it

You can hire people to critique your site. You can even get them on fiver fairly cheap. Having someone that is not associated with you or your site and giving an unbiased review of a customer experience can show you a lot you might never have realized. Asking friends or family is not the way, you need people that are not associated with you in any way. A cheap and definite must do.

Mailing list

This is one of the most under-appreciated and underused concepts we have ever seen. We have even seen people ask for emails but then never use them. In fact, they don’t even know where they go, they just put it on the site as they know they are supposed to. People, that mailing list is your fishing pond. You must, and we mean must, send at least one email a month to this list. Send them something interesting, and not just a “buy this” email. You are throwing away business if you do not do this.

Analytics

We have seen so many businesses that don’t have google analytics on their site, or if they do, they have never even looked at it. This goldmine of information can tell you so much about your site and business. How long they stay on your site, where they go, what they click on. Imagine if this was a printed ad? How would you like to know how well that ad is doing? How many people actually read it and how many were actually interested. Of course you would. But on websites? People seem to ignore this information. Again, that’s leaving money on the table.

Update

Update your site. If you sell things, and something sells out? Take it off the site. At least look like you are in business. If you have a blog, update it, or don’t have one. If the last time you posted news was 2014 then take the news off. Better yet actually post new news. It makes you look like you don’t care and are not a real business if you don’t update your site.

Actual SEO and SEM

Do some real search engine optimization, from a real company, or hire someone in-house that has done it before. Don’t pay a fortune to someone overseas that say they have a secret to get you on page 1 of Google. There are NO secrets, it’s just hard work and logic. Be the best you can be for your industry, give information and performance, and you will rise. Just like a real brick and mortar store. If you let it fall apart and don’t paint it and leave boxes in the aisle, you will drive away customers, so don’t do the same thing online, make a good site, and get it out there, and you will not regret it.

Capture your Google business listing

Another thing we see a lot is a business that doesn’t take their Google business listing. Its free and great resource. Google has a lot of people that use Google to search businesses, so grab your listing. You can link it to you your website, add photos, and post hours.

Responsive

If you haven’t updated your website for a long time it’s probably not responsive. Responsive means that you can see it on a smartphone. As people are accessing websites more and more on smartphones, if you are not optimized for a smartphone, again, people will forget you and go to a competitor.

These are just a few things that you should do that most people never seem to. It confuses us greatly why people can be great business people, but treat the web like a toy and not take it seriously. There are a lot of people that are making a fortune online, so why don’t you take your site a bit more seriously and join them. It doesn’t take much.