Here’s why And how you can take your website to the next level in 2022!
5 must-haves for a website in 2022…
Now that I have your attention let’s look ahead to 2022! It may be ‘Dry January’ but your website and online presence shouldn’t dry up. Now is a great time to revisit your website to make sure it’s up to date and gives potential customers and clients what they need — a virtual shopfront for your business, built to make 2022 massive.
With this in mind, here are my 5 must-haves for your website. If you neglect these essentials, well, your website will suck… So, get a fresh brew on, kick back and let’s get into it.
1. It’s Not Mobile-friendly
Straight off the bat, this is a biggie! There’s a very good chance you’re reading this on your phone right now, or in the last hour, you’ve read something on your phone. This is no surprise as over half of the internet usage is from a mobile device rather than a desktop, so it’s important your website is developed for mobile-first design.
Add into the mix that Google is now mobile-first indexing. If your website isn’t ready then it’s going to face the consequences. This is the last thing your business needs, so make sure your website is designed to be intuitive and easy to use on a mobile device.
You can test how mobile-friendly your website is using Googles tool HERE
2. It’s too slow.
Page Speed is only going to get more important in 2022 so act now and get ahead. There is nothing worse than finding a great site only to wait as the page slowly loads. Visitors to your site and potential customers don’t want to wait around and will happily look elsewhere if a page is taking more than 2-3 seconds to load. Making sure your website is optimised will improve your page speed massively! Optimising your design and images, minifying and combining your code, using browser caching and moving to a higher-performing server will decrease load times and help you attract and retain more potential customers.
Check out this example of a website we optimised for a client in the images below; the results speak for themselves.
If you want a free website Page Speed audit click HERE
BEFORE
AFTER
3. You don’t have Landing Pages / Funnels
You might not know what a landing page or Funnel is, but these are essential to any business and they in themselves are very powerful tools. In short, your website NEEDS funnels or at least one funnel that will help you get started. A funnel is a page on your website that is designed in a specific way that potential customers are sent to via links in social media posts or email campaigns etc.
The people clicking these links are therefore already interested and want to know more about your offering or service; Deploying a funnel is your chance to lock in these leads and convert them to customers – A win for any business!
To find out more about Funnels and how they can help your business check out the episode of our podcast ‘The Business Hustle’ below:
5 must-haves for a website in 2022
4. It doesn’t have a Live Chat function
Although Live Chat isn’t new technology and has been around for a number of years now, it has improved a lot and is becoming much more important and popular. It gives people another avenue to talk to someone, they want answers and they want them fast.
Having a Live Chat function on your site allows you to communicate and answer these questions no matter where you are with thanks to your mobile device. And if you’re not around to answer you can use the bot service and provide answers to frequently asked questions about your business while still portraying a human presence and capturing leads to call back at a later time.
5. It doesn’t have Tracking Codes installed
One of the biggest advantages of digital marketing is the ability to track your audience’s behaviour and use it to effectively communicate with them. Knowing how visitors interact with your brand online allows you to direct your messaging to better meet them at the right time. As I would put it – We chase people all over the internet through tracking, customer journeys and retargeting.
To make the most of this digital opportunity, you need to ensure you have the right tracking set up on your site well in advance of when you actually need it. The most important tracking tools you need to deploy are Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics & Facebook Pixels. With these tools successfully installed and incorporating a well-planned customer journey in place will ensure you’re on the right path to maximising your marketing opportunities.
Now, these tracking things sound tricky, they are not. But if you have no desire to add them but want them, ask your agency or designer to add them for you. Any agency and designer worth their salt should already have them done, but make sure that they are in there. Don’t leave the future of your business in the hands of someone else.
If you want to find out more about Tracking, Retargeting & Customer Journeys, we really do love to talk and are very happy to grab a no-strings chat!
I hope that you’ve found these 5 Must-haves for a websites in 2022 useful and that you can incorporate them on your website soon.