After a wild and bumpy ride throughout 2020, one thing has become increasingly clear when it comes to marketing your business. Having a strong web presence and a high performance, multi-platform marketing strategy is key for business success and continued growth.

Here are the five things your website needs to help your brand maximize success in 2021.

Strong SEO Structure

Virtually everyone on the planet has been forced to shift the way they make purchases for everything from essential groceries to vehicles to clothes which means that it’s more important than ever to rank high on search pages.

By optimizing your website to be found on Google, your website will be able to outrank your competitors so people searching for your products or services will see your brand before another one. Here are a few of the ways that you can improve your SEO and your chances of being found on Google.

• Optimized title tags
• Focus on keywords in page titles and descriptions
• User-friendly customer experience
• Fast loading times
• Consistent content strategy that utilizes keyword research (aka targeted blogs)
  

Although SEO is a long term strategy and it can take months of consistent work to truly pay off, it’s one of the most important elements of a website and can prove to be incredibly valuable.

Plus, when your website is ranking well on Google, your web traffic will increase which means you’ll have a larger warm audience for retargeting.

Consistent Branding

Branding is something that is incredibly important and often overlooked on websites. Simple things that you can do to improve your website’s branding include:

• Consistent voice in all copy
• Utilizing a color palette so each page matches
• Maintaining a standard spacing structure throughout the site so each page feels similar
• Visual content with your target audience to connect with your customers
  

Having a consistent look and feel throughout your site will help with your flow of information and it will help your customers stay focused on making their purchase. If your branding is inconsistent, people can subconsciously become confused and more reluctant to make a purchase.

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3 Pillars Of A Storybrand

In his book, “Building A Storybrand”, Donald Miller talks about the three things every website needs to have on the home page.

1. Who you are
2. What you do
3. How to buy from you
   

These three elements are crucial for lowering bounce rates and raising conversion rates. The goal is to help your web traffic know exactly what you can do for them as soon as they land on your site. If your web traffic is confused in any way, shape, or form before scrolling, the opportunity to convert them into a paying customer will be drastically reduced.

Streamlined Order Process

One of the best ways to increase your conversion rate is to make it easier for people to make a purchase. The faster your audience can complete their order, the fewer abandon carts you’ll have and the more purchases you’ll have.

Obviously there are other factors to increasing your conversion rate, but the total time needed to make a purchase is a huge factor.

Here are a few strategies that you can implement to reduce the order time for your customers:

• Shop button in your hero section
• Quick buy buttons
• Multiple payment options
• Top seller shortcuts on your homepage to help people find their product(s) faster
• Improve load times so your customers don’t need to wait
• Customer accounts with their information saved for future orders
  
  

Trust Building And Educational Elements

It takes a lot of trust for people to make a purchase online and to make things tougher, the more expensive the product, the more trust they need. 

• Is your product high quality?
• Are you a reputable company that stands behind your products?
• Is my personal information safe?
• Am I ordering the right product?
• What are other people saying about your product?
  

These are just some of the questions and concerns that people have when ordering products online, so addressing these concerns as simply and quickly as possible is a great way to build trust with your audience and ease their minds about ordering.

To go along with trust, education is also huge for your brand, especially if you are in a very specialized, unique, or highly competitive space. If your products or services aren’t widely known, then educating your customers on the importance and benefits of buying from you is crucial. On the opposite side of the spectrum, if you’re in a highly competitive market, then educating your customers about why they should buy from you instead of someone else is absolutely necessary so your customers don’t go buy from your competitors. 

As you get ready to guide your brand into 2021, keep in mind how 2020 changed consumer behavior forever. Online shopping is going to continue to increase so make sure that your website is ready for your customers.