4 Reasons Your Website is More Important Now Than Ever

Recent times have created a push for businesses to have a web presence now more than ever. Don’t get left behind! The following is 4 reasons why you should a) create a business website, or b) re-vamp your existing website to include the following:

• Mobile responsiveness
• Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Zoom meeting integration

 

53% of the world’s web traffic came from people using cell phones in 2019 

Mobile Responsive websites are crucial nowadays considering almost every single human on the planet uses a cell phone, tablet, or laptop to access the internet. If you don’t have a website for your business, consider how many leads a quality, informative, and responsive website could generate for your company. Even if you have a website, where does your site’s traffic come from?

These are all easy answers for Web Developers and Optimization Specialists to gather. Do you have an Optimization Specialist you work with? Consider consulting with us for free – we can perform a site audit and suggest updates and optimization of your site to increase your lead base.

15% of the world’s population is disabled (just over 1 Billion People) and they spend a half-trillion dollars yearly online

Disabled people spend billions of money online every year. Over 80% of disabled people encounter problems online. If you have an ADA compliant website that’s easy for a disabled person to use, they will come back to your site again and again and again, simply because your site works! Most disabled people are visually or hearing impaired, so if your site has ADA compliant features like screen readers for the visually impaired, or captions/transcripts of your videos available for people with hearing impairments, you will get a better return of investment simply because you are truly available and can communicate your product or service to any and everyone that visits your website.

If your website is not ADA compliant, expect to be sued. Lawyers are diligently searching for websites that are not ADA compliant and filing Federal lawsuits at an average of 1.4 per day (just in Florida). They’re making an easy living and getting paid very well for their minimal efforts which in turn is costing small businesses dearly and causing some to close their doors for good! We offer free consultations in regard to your website and ADA compliance and offer a solution for $500 per year. That’s cheap considering most ADA lawsuits are (of course) settling out of court for anywhere from $10,000 – $100,000.

91.5% of web traffic views sites listed only on the very first Search Engine Results Page (SERP)

Search Engine Optimization leads to better user experience, is still a primary source of leads, increases close rates on leads, promotes better cost management by lower advertising costs, and encourages local users to visit your actual brick and mortar store after searching online. SEO builds your brand and its credibility by ranking highly in SERPs.  Lastly, SEO builds brand awareness which can drive consumer’s decisions when choosing which company and/or brand to purchase. SEO will speed up your slow website, and helps establish a social presence in ever-popular social media websites.

Before Google Ads became a norm in online marketing, Google used to display 10 websites on their search engine results page. Now, the average number of sites on a results page is 8.5, mostly due to the implementation of GoogleAds and the space they consume on results pages.  Organic web traffic is even more important now considering there’s a lesser chance of your site showing up on Google’s SERPs.

SEO should be your long-term marketing strategy, and a cost-effective one at that. Competition is insane on the internet, so keeping your website up-to-date and relevant is part of SEO. If you aren’t relevant or up-to-date (even to today’s date) then you’re going to be left behind and move farther and farther from being the first, or even one of the first 8.5 listings in results pages. SEO is continuous work on a website, in order to keep high visibility online.

7+ Million Americans have started using Zoom since April 2020 (vs. about 2 million in January 2020)

Zoom is super common today, for video conferencing at work, and even in the learning management systems schools and colleges are using today to conduct classes online. If you are used to having PopUp sales in your store or in your area of the state or country, Zoom meetings allow you to have virtual PopUp sales! Zoom allows engaging online events for your employees, subscribers, potential customers, students, or clients. Online accessibility is everything nowadays.

There are numerous reasons why a website is a priority in today’s market, this article only discussed four of the major players. Technology will fuel the future of online business and if you aren’t incorporating good content, good images, and accessibility to your site, then you’re headed for a downward spiral. Web development including optimization of content and images is a learned skill that a lot of business owners either don’t have time to learn and perfect, or can’t afford to hire someone even part-time to work on the business site. Consider consulting with our experts for free, just to get an idea of the costs and benefits of having a quality website.

Resources We Used for This Article:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/07/technology/coronavirus-internet-use.html 
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-101/seo-statistics/#close