In today’s competitive commercial environment, being digitally savvy is a must for most business owners. However, far too many businesspeople make adequate use of their company website.
If your is just a place for customers to find out about your opening hours and the sort of products and services you offer, then you can do a lot better. Read on to find out three simple ways you can improve your website and get more from it.
Build New Websites
To begin with, many smaller enterprises have multiple websites nowadays. Because AI technology has made it easier to clone websites while adapting them to certain localities, market niches, or brand identities, you can have a website for each target audience you serve. This does away with the one-size-fits-all style of web development which has been prevalent for so long.
Why not register domain names that will suit your business purposes so that you are future-proofed and ready to go as soon as you enter a new market?
Building and hosting the website that lies behind the domain will take little effort if it’s similar to what you already have but you cannot do this unless you have registered the URLs you want to use. Try to avoid using too many sub-pages on your websites to talk to different customer demographics. This makes websites seem incoherent whereas multiple sites don’t suffer from this problem.
Make Use of APIs
Application programming interfaces – or APIs – allow websites to integrate different types of software and widgets so that they can interface with one another.
For example, if you wanted to build an appointment booking option into your website, you might want it to update itself according to the schedule you have on your phone. If you are out and about making appointments yourself, then you won’t want your website offering bookings that clash.
An API will mean the two systems can talk to one another to avoid such unwanted eventualities. There are various data formats that APIs use to structure information but, at heart, what they do is simplify the interaction between website interfaces to make them easier to use.
Conduct a Website Audit
When websites have aged for a few years without being updated, all sorts of errors can occur. Perhaps you have a blog post that links to an authoritative site that no longer exists or the information being linked to has changed?
Maybe you have an internal link to a product that is no longer offered?
There again, you could have removed sections of your website that outside websites are linking to. If so, all of these so-called dead links will necessarily be impacting on your SEO strategy. Google and the other big search engines use links to establish how trusted a site is. Dead ones cause problems with internet visibility, so conducting a website audit will help your search rankings while also making your digital home easier to navigate.
Summary
Better website functionality doesn’t just make sites more professional but improves performance, too. With properly loading pages, well-organized information, and a plan for future online expansion, you’ll be all set for the rigours of the digital age.
