7 Tips to Improve Your Website In 2022

Did you know that most visitors only spend about 5 seconds on your website before deciding whether to stay or leave? You don’t have all the time of the day to impress your visitors with your website or to persuade them to take action with you.

According to Neilson Norman Group, users are likely to read 20% of the words on a page. You can have the best content in the world and still get unnoticed. The first few seconds a visitor spends on your website are crucial. Before they even get to your content, you need to make sure that you attract their interest right away.

A successful website must strike a balance between high-performing content and an amazing user experience. The last thing you want is to spend time creating amazing content for your blog or service pages only for it to be ignored due to navigation issues, poor functionality, design flaws, confusing layouts, or missed conversion opportunities. It doesn’t matter how beautiful your website is or how many features it has unless it is designed with the customer in mind.

Your website should prioritise your customers so as to ensure that you anticipate their goals. The goal of your website should then be to assist customers in achieving that goal.

So, how can you get started on improving your website?

Let’s focus on seven reasons why your website isn’t working as effectively as it could in 2022. If you can address these issues, your site will be greatly positioned for the rest of the year and into the future.

1. Map your customer journey 

User experience is one of the most common reasons for a website redesign — whether it’s because the website is cluttered, difficult to browse, or takes a long time to load. 

This is where customer journey mapping comes in handy. Have a thorough understanding of the customer’s decision-making process. This can range from the moment they become aware of an opportunity or a pain point to the moment they decide to make a purchase.

Customer journey mapping helps in the creation of content that guides potential customers through the conversion funnel.

Develop a plan on how users navigate between pages and sections of the website. Make sure you apply web design principles that work.

2. Improve your site speed

One of the most common reasons for users to abandon a website is because it takes too long to load. Page speed has become such an important component of a positive user experience which is why Google now includes load time in its search engine rankings. Making sure that a website loads quickly is one of the simplest and easiest strategies to get more clients and increase conversion rates. This is only possible when a website is built with speed and efficiency in mind. 

There are a variety of strategies you can take to improve the speed of your website, including linking to or compressing huge files, deleting any unnecessary pieces of code, or having your website load as users scroll. Google’s PageSpeed Insights, WebPageTest and Website Speed Test by Pingdom are some of the great tools to measure and track your website’s speed and performance. Make sure that you hire a web development service so that they can help you get fast and efficient website speeds.

3. Keep your site secure

Have you recently changed your login passwords? Do you have any plugin or theme updates that need to be installed? Small details like this often go unnoticed by most business owners, yet they might compromise the security of your website. From viruses and malware to malicious apps and hackers’ threats, websites must prevent security breaches on both the front ends and back ends. 

To protect customer information, websites designed to make online transactions, such as ecommerce sites, require additional security measures. Users want to know that when they make a purchase on your website, it’s safe and secure, and that their credit card information isn’t sent over an open connection and made public. SSL is vital to search engines, and sites that do not have it enabled may be penalised. Businesses must also conduct regular security checks or work with a company that offers this service. 

4. Use responsive design 

Since many people will use your website from both a desktop and a mobile device, it’s critical that you build it using responsive design principles. This means that your site should adjust to different screen widths while still allowing you to access all of the key data and graphics. When using a responsive layout, make sure it keeps the same look and feel as the desktop version, regardless of the device being utilised.

Although the layout of the site will invariably change on mobile from the desktop version, only minor changes will be required, such as the maximum width of the page and the size of the photos and logos. In addition, if possible, the colour palette and typefaces should have a unified approach to it. Any significant differences between the desktop and mobile versions will just add to the user’s confusion when accessing the site on different devices. Other elements, such as increased visibility for essential icons like the shopping cart, can help mobile consumers navigate your site more easily. 

5. Promote through social media 

Social media pages are an amazing strategy to promote your content and drive traffic to your website. Social media networks with millions of monthly users such as Instagram, Youtube and Twitter, might be an amazing way to promote your website online. From the list, Facebook is the most popular social media platform because it has the most active members.

Share posts online and use keywords in doing so. You can ensure that your posts reach the right people in a variety of ways, one of which is by using hashtags. Most users use hashtags on social media platforms to help other users interested in related topics find their posts online.

Another great strategy to do is to include quotes from other online businesses that are similar to yours in your posts. This will improve your chances of not just being discovered, but also having your posts shared on their profiles.

6. Write meaningful content 

It’s not enough to simply post content. You also need to develop content that is meaningful and cuts through the noise. In reality, one of the most effective strategies to increase website traffic is to provide relevant and meaningful content. Users can find this type of content for free by conducting a keyword search. It can be found on your website’s blog, knowledge base or resource page. 

Basically, web traffic should increase if you care about the content you create, upload often, and research what your audience wants to see. Your blog posts should use commonly searched keywords, phrases and questions. Then, include high-search-volume keywords in your header, text, URL, and meta description to optimise blog entries for SEO. Once you’ve ranked on the first page of the search engines, a single blog post might generate hundreds, if not thousands, of clicks every month. After all, the top five organic results make up 67.60% of the total clicks on the first page alone. 

7. Use call to action

Do you have effective calls-to-action on your website to convert visitors into customers? A lack of a clear call to action is one of the most common web development flaws. Things like “sign up,” “contact us,” “watch video,” “shop now,” and other similar phrases are critical for moving potential buyers further down the purchase funnel. Your call-to-actions should be visible, appealing, and persuasive enough to persuade readers to do the requested action.

CTAs will encourage users to take a favourable action towards your business. Getting visitors to visit your site is great, but it doesn’t mean anything if they leave without taking any action.

Conclusion

When it comes to your website, keep in mind that there is no such thing as a single, one-off design. It requires regular maintenance and updates.

It is, in reality, the backbone of your business. And before you know it, a superb website redesign could be just what you need to take your business to the next level. Also, don’t forget to assess your site’s success with a reliable web development team.

If the idea of revamping your website has you feeling overwhelmed, seek out a web development agency that can run redesign tests and establish pinpoints. Creativ Digital’s team is here to assist you. We can help you with every step of the way. From the initial phases of brainstorming to design, launch and maintenance, our expert team has you covered. Get in touch with our Sydney team today to get you started.

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Best TikTok Marketing Tips

TikTok has become one of the most popular social media platforms on the planet today. It is mainly used by young people to share videos of themselves dancing, singing or reacting to videos.

Nowadays, TikTok has exploded to become a platform for selling. Influencers and their products are flocking to TikTok to try and sway a portion of their 1 billion active users.

If you’re thinking about leveraging TikTok for your marketing campaign, we have some tips for you to consider.

Take Advantage of Current Trends

TikTok’s algorithm prioritizes content based on popularity. This means that videos with the most views will be the ones you will see first once you open the app.

TikTok requires for users to be engaged and keep up with current trends. It is easy to find trends just by using hashtag which helps to introduce a brand to an audience.

Leveraging existing trends can help you get the exposure you need and reach your target audience.

For example, Kraft used the popular duet challenge on TikTok and used the hashtag #KraftMacMeSkip to engage viewers. The video ended up with over 6 million views.

Balance Entertainment and Promotion

Just like any other social media platform, the primary goal of users on TikTok is to find entertainment. This is why your content should be a balance between entertainment and promotion.

Nobody wants to watch a video (no matter how short) if it is a form of advertisement.  When a video is too promotional, viewers will skip it.

When it comes to TikTok you need to entertain first and get your audience to enage. Once you have a following you can start to use videos to market products like tutorials, people interacting with your products or exclusive offers.

Use Partnerships For Brand Awareness

Don’t be afraid to use the expertise of other people to conquer TikTok. Just like any other platform, TikTok has a learning curve. It also has a Creator Marketplace that can help businesses find personalities that are experts at creating meaningful content online.

If you’re new to TikTok you can find someone that can help you produce relevant videos that can entertain your audience.

Aside from experts, you can also reach out to influencers with lots of following to help advertise your brand.

Variety Is Key

The people who use TikTok are on the younger scale, usually teenagers and young adults who easily get bored with repetitive content. So don’t be afraid to try variety when creating content.

Use a variety of backdrops and settings to keep the viewer engaged with the product. Change viewpoints, scenery and content all the time to keep viewers engaged.

Connect Through CTA

Connect with viewers by displaying a call-to-action (CTA) within the ad. TikTok’s Ad Manager offers features for clickable CTAs. This button can create more traffic for your brand and seamlessly connects with your audience.

Most importantly, it provides your audience an interactive experience and increases  conversions which is a staple of high-performing advertisements.

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Tech Startups: Mistakes You Want To Avoid

Having passion, vision and motivation are some of the prerequisites when entering the world of startups. The Harvard Business Review writes that two-thirds of startups never show a positive return. This kind of figure can be alarming especially if you’re a startup.

It is normal for tech companies to encounter issues. Just like any other business; cash flow, product-market fit, vendor selection and the like can be problematic.

In this article we will discuss common startup mistakes you want to avoid to get ahead of the competition.

Immediately Jumping To Build Mode

Most of the time we think: “I can do this, just do it”. What this really means is: I have money and skills and friends that are on board, so I’ll just build what I have in mind.

It’s very easy to admire the passion and courage in this kind of decision. But as we stated earlier, approximately 70% of startups fail and the most common reason they do is because they build something people don’t need right now.

So while it is brave and courageous to immediately jump into build mode, is like jumping out of a plane knowing that there is a 70% chance of your parachute not opening.

One of the best ways to avoid a failure is to use the Lean startup methodology. It helps entrepreneurs solve this problem by providing parachutes, skydiving altimeter and even goggles and helmets that help you avoid crashing.

The variant of skydiving without a parachute is developing a prototype too soon. This is when you create something in order to prove that you can do it before others can do it. What this means is: “I have this idea and I have the skills to build it. Therefore, I will build it to see whether it is feasible or not”.

Developing a Prototype Too Soon

However, just because you can build it, does not mean to say that there is a market for it. After having a new business idea or product, it is better and cheaper to start validating customer problems that a proof of concept may intend to solve.

If you find that you don’t have problems that are big enough then you have either targeted the wrong market or built the wrong product.

Writing a Business Plan Immediately

Many businessmen think that it is best to write a business plan as soon as you have a good idea. In most cases, business plans are long documents. It is a detailed plan on how you plan to execute your idea and what the financial impact would be for years to come (sometimes up to 5 years!)

There are 2 problems with this. First, nobody is going to read a very long business plan. If nobody has time to read it, then why are you going to spend time writing it? Secondly, if you’re idea is something innovative, then wouldn’t it be hard to make a plan for it and make forecast for financials?

Unless the business is an established one, a business plan is just a paper full of assumptions. Also, what if an investor sees this plan and invests? They will think that you can execute everything in the document that is full of invalidated assumptions and that you can replicate this in real life complete with financial results that you made up.

Instead of writing a business plan, just start doing business properly and validate the riskiest assumptions quickly in the cheapest way.

No Focus

Passion and ambition can sometimes lead you to a bad place. There are many entrepreneurs who are filled with visions for their business. These visions if properly executed and embraced would probably have made the world a better place. However, passion and ambition can also make you restless; jumping from one idea to the next.

In fact, there are some businessmen who launch project after project without pause and sometimes at the same time. While this is admirable, having no focus can make businesses fail.

For instance, you might be focused too much on launching businesses you don’t have time to look after those that are already standing. What problems are they experiencing right now? Are they still on the green?

Expanding the Team Quickly

Startups are usually full of enthusiasm and creativity. Working together is fun but sometimes it can be difficult. Expanding the team too quickly could lead to altered team dynamics and tension. More people mean more personalities to deal with.

Instead of adding team members too soon, stick to a lean team for as long as you can. Define a value proposition, test and validate it on the market. Avoid adding members until you have a clear picture of who you need on board.

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Best Tools For Web Developers To Learn In 2022

Even the best web developers can struggle if they don’t have the right tools to do the job. Having the right tools at your fingertips can help increase your productivity whether you are a frontend or backend developer.

This is why having and learning the right tools is important. Having powerful tools can save time developing, testing, debugging, deploying, and even scaling your application.

Here is our list of the best tools developers need to use or learn in 2022.

VS Code

This is probably one of the most important tools web developers need to learn this year.  VS Code is lightweight and powerful and easily customized by downloading extensions.

There are so many extensions available ranging from debugging, connecting to git, deploying to cloud and many more.

Many developers already know and use VS Code. However, if you don’t, we strongly suggest learning how to use this tool this year. There are many online tutorial courses as well as a Udemy course.

Chrome Developer Tools

This is another essential tool for developers as it lets you see what’s going on in the browser. Using Chrome developer also lets you examine different HTML elements or play with CSS or check JavaScript.

It also lets you see details in regards to downloading scripts and network connections to name a few. We also recommend this tool for browser based debugging especially for frontend developers. Alternatively, Firefox has firebug which is also an amazing tool for debugging web pages in the browser.

Postman

Modern web developer focuses a lot on API and Postman is a good tool to interact with those APIs. During the development process, you might want to get familiar with 3^rd party library and Postman is a good tool that you can use to send GET and POST request, send request headers, examine response headers and other HTTP metadata.

It also comes in handy for REST API testing which makes it a valuable tool for both frontend and backend developers.

Docker

Containers make web development easier and are essential for modern day developers. It also makes deployment a breeze. Normally, developers deploy applications to its dependencies separately. Instead of this tedious chore, you deploy it to a container which is easier to manage and scale.

Docker is one of the most popular platforms and is a must learn tool for developers – frontend and backend.

GitBash

There are many git clients available online for both GUI and command line. But if you’re using Windows and prefer to work in the command line, we recommend GitBash.

Other platforms like VS Code and other IDEs already have GitHub integration, sometimes it is easier to work in the command line especially if you are committing a large block of code or merging changes from different batches.

Using Linux makes it easy to execute git commands, but Windows users find this a bit challenging and this is where GitBash comes in.

Bottom Line

2022 is a great year to boost your productivity and enjoy your web development journey. These tools will not only help you keep productive but also make the workload lighter and make you a better web developer.

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