12 Tips to Achieve a More Profitable Business Website
Anyone can create a website, and every business needs one. However, creating a website that actually turns a profit can be a challenge.
From design and ease of use to your marketing message, there are many elements to consider and organize in order to make your website profitable. Below, 12 members of YEC weigh in with their best pieces of advice to help business leaders create more profitable websites.
1. Create Fans Before Selling
These days, you have to create fans before you can sell them on your products or services. You have to create content and promote it to your fans (email list, social media followers, etc.) consistently to get their attention. Then, when you have something new, you can ask for the sale.
2. Utilize 360-Degree Marketing
It is not enough to just publish the site and be done. You should make sure the site is optimized for search engines and consistently updated, post and engage regularly on social media, be a guest on other websites and podcasts, etc. Doing all this will allow people to find that website that you worked so hard on and bring in a steady stream of leads.
– Morissa Schwartz, Dr. Rissy’s Writing & Marketing
3. Conduct Rigorous Testing
Test relentlessly. The best websites are optimized over years and hundreds, if not thousands, of iterations. A disciplined and rigorous testing methodology that makes decisions predicated on data and not gut is the only reliable way to make those consistently small improvements that ultimately yield results.
– Colin Darretta, Innovation Department
4. Build for User Experience
Build your website with user experience (UX) at the forefront. Users will leave if it is disorganized or confusing, rendering your content irrelevant. Make sure users can intuitively navigate your site to find the answers they seek. Page content should answer visitors’ questions, and more premium content like guides or white papers should be accessible through a form that adds users to your email list.
5. Diversify Its Income Streams
To create a more profitable website, diversify its income streams. Almost all businesses can add affiliate links, e-commerce, courses, memberships and paid advertising that aligns with their site. However, it would be best if you remained consistent with your branding. If you work in law, your affiliate links should be law-related items.
– Matthew Podolsky, Florida Law Advisers, P.A.
6. Ensure It’s Mobile-Friendly
The majority of customers will be viewing websites from their mobile phones, so make sure your website is optimized for a mobile screen. If your website does not look appealing to a customer while they are viewing it on their phone, you can almost automatically kiss that customer goodbye.
– Ismael Wrixen, FE International
7. Create a Sales Funnel
Creating an effective sales funnel will help monetize any website. A sales funnel that converts has three essential elements. These elements attract leads at the top via website traffic, move leads through the middle of the funnel by educating them on an offer, and then the bottom of the funnel makes the offer. A good conversion rate is anything above four percent. – Kristin Kimberly Marquet, Marquet Media, LLC
8. Include Valuable Content
The key to building a successful, profitable website is to include plenty of value-packed content. To keep your target audience engaged, you’ll want to create plenty of blog posts, video updates, social media posts and infographics. It’s not enough to say, “Here’s my product.” You have to continuously deliver value if you want to turn casual shoppers into brand advocates.
– John Brackett, Smash Balloon LLC
9. Use Opt-In Forms and Pop-ups
I recommend using opt-in forms and pop-ups with enticing titles and calls to action to capture leads on the website. That way, businesses can grow their email list and promote their products or services via email marketing as well. They say that you need to put your product in front of the customer seven times before they take action and buy from your business, and email marketing will help you with that.
– Benjamin Rojas, All in One SEO
10. Increase Loading Speed
To create a more profitable website, one piece of advice that I would give is to make your website load faster. According to Google, a website that loads quickly should be loading in less than three seconds. Fast loading times will rank you higher on search engines, improve bounce rate and improve your conversions overall.
– Alfredo Atanacio, Uassist.ME
11. Use Paid Memberships
To create a more profitable website, you can turn it into a membership website where only paying customers have access to your content. Being blocked gives visitors an incentive to take action and become part of your online community, even if they have to pay for it. Those invested in your brand will become members and pay for your content.
– Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms
12. Display Trustworthiness
If you want to build a profitable website, you have to show that you’re trustworthy. I suggest looking for opportunities to display social proof on your site. Customer reviews, live sales notifications and trust seals on your payment page are all effective ways to show new visitors that consumers and well-known businesses trust your brand.
