Crucial WordPress maintenance tasks to keep your site running smoothly

Are you unsure about the performance of your WordPress site? With just a few routine maintenance checks, you can ensure the security, safety, and optimal performance of your site. In this article, we’ll go over the top WordPress maintenance tasks that you should perform regularly.

Update your WordPress passwords regularly

Having unique and complex passwords is crucial to prevent unauthorized access to your WordPress website. However, it’s possible for even strong passwords to be compromised without your knowledge. This is why WordPress security experts suggest changing your passwords periodically, including passwords for your WordPress admin area, FTP or SSH accounts, and WordPress database.

The challenge with strong passwords is that they can be difficult to recall, which is why using password manager apps such as Dashlane is advisable. These apps allow you to securely store and autofill your passwords.

Backup your website regularly

Having regular backups of your WordPress website is crucial for enhancing its security. By creating backups regularly, you can be prepared for worst-case scenarios, such as a site breach or unintentional lockout. Backups can prove to be a lifesaver in such catastrophic situations.

WordPress offers several excellent backup plugins such as BackupBuddy that can facilitate automating the backup process.

Optimize your website images

Images take longer to load than text, causing a decrease in your page’s loading speed. During your website’s performance analysis, you may come across excessively large images. However, such images can go unnoticed in less popular pages. For instance, in a multi-author WordPress site, some of your authors may not pay as much attention to the size of their images as you do. Conducting a review of your media library can help you identify images that are too large and allow you to optimize them for better site performance.

Check if your site is indexed

To ensure users can easily find your website, it is important to have it indexed or listed in popular search engines like Google. One simple way to check whether your content has been indexed and is searchable is by entering “site:yoursite.com” in the search field on Google.

For a more comprehensive analysis of your website’s search engine optimization, you can use web crawling tools to identify issues such as broken links and duplicate content that could negatively affect your website’s user experience and search engine rankings.

Additionally, periodically searching for keywords related to your content on Google can help you assess your website’s visibility in search results.

Conduct security checks regularly

Scanning your WordPress site for malware is an important measure to avoid a security breach. Hackers can steal sensitive information from compromised websites and use them for malicious purposes, such as identity theft, extortion, and fraud.

Fortunately, the free Sucuri WordPress plugin can assist you in performing critical security tasks such as, security activity auditing, blacklist monitoring, post-hack security actions, file integrity checks, and more.

Fix broken links

Broken links can negatively impact user experience and your website’s SEO ranking.There are various reasons why broken links happen, but the most common cause is when a page is deleted or relocated, resulting in a 404 not found error being displayed by the server. To address a broken link, the most effective solution is to redirect it to an alternative page. For instance, if the content of an article has been relocated to a new location, a redirect to the updated article will be necessary.

We hope this article has provided you with valuable insights on essential WordPress maintenance tasks that you should conduct regularly to keep your website running smoothly. If you want to learn more about WordPress maintenance, call our experts today.

Ask yourself what your website is doing for you and whether it’s aligned with your business needs and objectives. The GCInfotech professional web design team is here to help.

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. SOURCE

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Understanding the different types of web hosting

In today’s digital world, it is essential for businesses of any size and in all industries to have a website. To build your own site, you will require the services of a web host, but what exactly does this entail? Let us give you an overview as we introduce the two most popular forms of web hosting.

What does web hosting mean?

Web hosting is an essential service that allows individuals and organizations to make their website internet-accessible. It is a type of hosting service where businesses can store and run their website files on a web server that is typically owned by the web host. Popular web hosting providers include DreamHost, HostGator, GoDaddy, and Bluehost.

When you acquire a web hosting plan, you are essentially renting space on the host’s server for a monthly fee. You can think of it as paying for an apartment in a building; the landlord (your web host) owns the entire building, and you get to rent out one of the apartments within it (web hosting). Web hosting also comes with an array of features and services that are designed to make your website easier to manage, including database access, email accounts, and domain purchases.

Are there different types of web hosting?

Depending on the provider, there could be many types of web hosting available. The main ones include:

  • Shared hosting – involves multiple websites sharing a single web server, with each website allocated its own resources. It is the most economical option, as it requires minimal technical knowledge and comes with features such as one-click software installation, email accounts, and unlimited website hosting.
  • Virtual private server (VPS) hosting – suitable for websites that require more control and flexibility than what shared hosting offers. A VPS is a virtual machine with its own dedicated resources, so you can access the server remotely and manage it as if it were a physical computer. The benefits of VPS hosting include better performance, higher levels of security and privacy, and the ability to scale as your website grows. However, it may require technically savvy personnel to manage and configure.
  • Dedicated hosting – provides the most resources and is ideal for large websites with high levels of traffic. The entire server is rented out by the client, so they can customize it to their own requirements and have full control over it. The drawback is that dedicated hosting can be an expensive option for businesses.
  • Cloud hosting – utilizes multiple cloud servers to create a virtual environment for websites. It is similar to VPS in terms of features and customization, but the main benefit is that cloud hosting can scale to meet changing website demands. Additionally, there are no hardware maintenance costs and an uptime guarantee.

Which web hosting type best fits your business?

Ultimately, the choice of web hosting type depends on the size and scope of your website, as well as your budget. If you are just starting out or have a small website, shared hosting might be the right choice.

On the other hand, businesses with larger websites will benefit from either VPS or dedicated hosting because of the flexibility they offer, especially if your website has several pages, expects high traffic, or requires special website features like an eCommerce component. Meanwhile, cloud hosting is recommended for businesses that need the highest levels of security, scalability, and uptime guarantee.

In the end, it is best to take some time to evaluate your website’s needs and choose a hosting plan that meets them.

If picking a suitable web hosting type and partner proves tricky, you should consult a professional. As IT experts ourselves, we can help you select the right web hosting provider. Give us a call to learn more.

Ask yourself what your website is doing for you and whether it’s aligned with your business needs and objectives. The GCInfotech professional web design team is here to help.

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. SOURCE

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Speed up your WordPress site by following these tips

Ten years ago, waiting five seconds for a website to load was perfectly acceptable. But today, people just don’t have the patience for pages that load for more than three seconds. Anything slower than that and they’ll click away, which then increases your bounce rate. If you want to speed up your WordPress site and reduce bounce rate, try the following tips.

Keep WordPress and plugins up to date

Updating your WordPress version and plugins will not only keep your website secure but also speed it up. Therefore, you should install those updates as soon as they become available.

You can set WordPress to update automatically, or you can install updates manually. If you want to manage the updates yourself, install the Easy Updates Manager plugin to help you stay on top of all updates.

Choose a website host wisely

Your website’s host can make or break your website. So before you select one, carefully compare the details of their service plans — especially the website speed and uptime — against those of other vendors.

While it may be tempting to opt for shared hosting because of its low cost, this setup offers the slowest speeds because websites are simultaneously relying on the same server for bandwidth. In contrast, having a dedicated server will provide the best speed, but it may be too costly for many small- and medium-sized businesses.

A great mid-performance, mid-price alternative is a virtual private server (VPS). A VPS acts like a dedicated server in terms of functionality but still technically uses a shared server. It will speed up your site better than typical shared hosting without breaking the bank.

Keep your site lean

The leaner your site, the faster it will load. To create a lean site, be mindful of these four things:

  1. Theme – Having a theme with tons of features can set you back in terms of speed. This is because the huge amount of code that powers those features can bog down your site. Avoid this by testing different themes to see how long they take to load. If the loading time is more than three seconds, look for another theme that loads faster.
  2. Design – Some design elements can dramatically slow down your site. Simple sites load faster, so carefully consider the ads, images, and extra assets that you add to your website to avoid slow page loads.
  3. Plugins – Think twice before going overboard with plugins, as having fewer plugins translates to a faster site load time. Also, keep in mind that not all plugins are created equal; some run faster than others. To tell one from the other, use applets that show the impact a plugin has on your site’s load time.
  4. Images – While many raw images are around 3,000 to 4,000 pixels wide, most web pages resize them without compression to 600 to 800 pixels wide so they can fit on the screen. If you want faster web page load speeds, resize your site’s images to the exact size they’ll appear on the screen. This shaves some bytes off the image file size, so the images load more quickly.

Leverage speed-boosting plugins

Use plugins that speed up your site. Cache plugins like W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache can provide more speed by caching your site on user browsers, thereby reducing download times.

Another helpful plugin is Lazy Load. It boosts your site’s speed by loading the elements at the top of the website first, then loading subsequent elements as a visitor scrolls down the page. Most themes already include the Lazy Load plugin, so check your Theme Options to see if it’s already part of your code pack.

Use redirects sparingly

Web pages that point to other URLs can slow down your site, so make sure to avoid or limit redirections. To check for redirects that your website doesn’t need, you can use the Redirect mapper tool or similar alternatives.

Implementing some or all of the tips above will surely improve your WordPress site’s speed. If you need more help in optimizing your website, or if you have other IT concerns, just give us a call.

Ask yourself what your website is doing for you and whether it’s aligned with your business needs and objectives. The GCInfotech professional web design team is here to help.

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. SOURCE

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WordPress website maintenance: 6 Most essential tasks

Maintaining your WordPress website is not as hard as it seems — just follow this simple maintenance checklist we’ve prepared for you. We’ve outlined six essential tasks that you should perform regularly to keep your WordPress site running smoothly.

Create complete backups of your website

One of the most important things you can do to protect your website is to back it up periodically. This will allow you to restore your site if something goes wrong, such as a hacker attack or server crash. There are several ways to create backups, including using plugins or manually copying your files and database. But while plugins like BackUpWordPress and hosting servers like SiteGround automate the backup process, performing manual backups may still be necessary to cover all your bases.

Verify your backups

Just because you have backups doesn’t mean they’re doing their job. You should test your backups regularly to make sure they are working properly. This can be done by restoring a backup to a test site or simply downloading the files and checking them to make sure they are complete. The last thing you need is for your backups to fail on the day you need them most.

Perform daily security scans

One of the best ways to stay ahead of potential security threats is to monitor your website closely for any signs of compromise. A good way to do this is to perform daily security scans, which will help you track any changes or suspicious activity. There are a number of different tools and services that can help you with this, and one of the most popular ones is Sucuri. Not only does this plugin carry out inspections, but it also sends an SMS to notify you of any suspicious activity and emails you a daily status report of your website’s security.

Scan for malware

Cyberthreats are growing in both number and sophistication. With every passing day, new strains of malware are developed and released onto business networks and systems. Unless you are a bonafide hacker yourself, detecting malware might be a little tricky. WordPress plugins like Wordfence keep your website safe using the latest firewall rules and flagging the latest malware signatures and malicious IP addresses.

Conduct page speed audits

Slow and steady may be qualities valued by some, but not when it comes to your website. Plugins like Google Pagespeed Insights test how fast your site loads. If it takes more than five seconds, you should consider implementing caching and other measures to speed up your site. Slow sites put off visitors, and that further lowers those sites’ search rankings.

Review your site’s structure and content

Just as you should periodically review your website’s security, you should also take a look at its overall structure and content. Are the pages well organized and easy to navigate? Is the content relevant and up to date? If not, you may want to consider making some changes.

Forbes, National Geographic, and The New York Times are all powered by WordPress, which means you are in good company. By sticking to the checklist, you too can harness the power of this online, open-source website creation tool. Or, instead of signing up for half a dozen services that need daily check-ins, why not have us take care of all of it for you? If you have further questions, don’t hesitate to send us an email or give us a call!

Ask yourself what your website is doing for you and whether it’s aligned with your business needs and objectives. The GCInfotech professional web design team is here to help.

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. SOURCE

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What you need to know about web hosting

Every business, regardless of size and industry, needs to have an online presence these days. One of the best ways to achieve this is to create your own website, and for that, you’ll need a web host. Here’s a quick overview of what a web host is and the two most common types of hosting.

What is a web host?

A web host sells or leases memory space on its servers so your website can have a virtual location on the internet. Their services include online storage for all of your site’s files and web pages.

Many web hosts also offer domain name hosting, which creates a web address that users can type into a web browser to access your website (e.g., google.com, inc.com, etc.). Combine these two hosting services and you have the main foundations for your website.

You can also get domain-based email addresses (e.g., robert@acmeenterprise.com) and website databases from web hosts. Essentially, your web host can store everything your website needs.

When you sign up with a web host, you will usually pay a monthly fee, which the company uses to maintain and invest in new servers for hosting, increase access speeds, and provide better services.

What are the two most common types of web hosting?

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of web hosts around the world, but they usually fall into one of two categories:

  • Shared hosting – Multiple, different websites are stored on one physical hosting server. Sites have their own partition (section of storage) that is kept separate from other sites on the same server.
  • Dedicated hosting – One website is hosted per server. This means you have all of the server’s capacity to yourself.

Which hosting type is best for my business website?

Most websites use shared hosting because it’s more affordable while still offering generally stable access and access speeds. This is the ideal hosting type for most small- and medium-sized businesses with fairly simple websites.

If your website is going to be large (e.g., thousands of pages) and you are going to host complex features like advanced eCommerce, streaming, communication portals, and other web applications, then it would be best to opt for a dedicated hosting service. Examples of large sites include Google, Amazon, and government sites, among others.

With numerous web hosts out there, selecting the right fit can be quite challenging. But with our IT expertise and solutions, we can help you find the web host that will work best for your business needs. Contact us today to get started with your online presence.

Ask yourself what your website is doing for you and whether it’s aligned with your business needs and objectives. The GCInfotech professional web design team is here to help.

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. SOURCE

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5 Website conversion ideas for your business

Do you need a website that’ll convince people to sign up for your services or buy your product? The solution to conversion is simpler than you think. Here are five easy website essentials that will surely encourage conversion.

1. Optimize your website for mobile devices

More people are now surfing the web via smartphones and tablets. If you want a piece of this traffic, you need to make your website’s design responsive to all mobile devices.

To give your visitors a seamless mobile experience, make sure your website design fits the screen of any device. Additionally, all elements of your website, including inner pages, resources, and call-to-action buttons should be easily accessible. If not, visitors will get frustrated and move to another site.

2. Make it easy for customers to contact you

Displaying your phone number in the upper-right corner of every page and providing a simple contact form is crucial for conversions. While some people prefer not to give up their email address for fear it will be picked off by spambots, it can serve as another contact option for those who hate web forms. At the very least, your customers will have more than one way to contact you.

3. Keep it simple

People don’t always have time to navigate a complicated website, dig through dozens of pages to find a contact number, or figure out what it is that you’re selling. So when it comes to design, simplicity makes sense. When producing a simple website, every page, word, and image you create must have a singular purpose: to get visitors to contact you. Don’t distract them with excessive information, silly games, or flashy animations. Instead, have a nice clean layout so they can quickly understand what you’re offering and can contact you in just a click.

4. Include original photos whenever possible

Imagine having to choose between two different websites that sell the same thing and look virtually the same. The key difference is that one uses real photos of the owner and his or her staff, while the other uses stock images of business people.

By using original and authentic photos, visitors can get a better sense of your company as well as its products and services. It also gives you better control over how you can compose your photos and determine how you want your company to be perceived. So the next time you need images for your website, invest some time and money in having quality pictures taken by a professional photographer.

5. Move social media icons to the bottom of the page

Everyone loves throwing social media icons on their websites. And while it’s not a bad idea to show your credibility, putting social media icons at the top of the page makes your visitors more likely to click on them immediately. When this happens, you just gave them a reason to leave your site and never return, and we all know how easy it is to get distracted on social media.

Instead, place your social media icons at the bottom of the page or in the footer area. Remember, the goal of your website is to convert. If your visitors leave before they get a chance to explore your services, content, and offerings, you’ve lost them before you even had them.

For more tips on enhancing your digital presence, give us a call and leverage our IT expertise for your business today.

Ask yourself what your website is doing for you and whether it’s aligned with your business needs and objectives. The GCInfotech professional web design team is here to help.

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. SOURCE

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Tips to boost the speed of your WordPress site

A decade ago, five seconds was a completely acceptable page load time. But today, most users expect a web page to load as soon as they open it. Otherwise, they will simply close it. To prevent users from bouncing off, try these tips that will surely speed up your WordPress site.

Keep WordPress and plugins up to date

Updating your WordPress version and plugins will not only keep your website secure but also speed it up. Therefore, you should install those updates as soon as they become available.

Choose a website host wisely

Your website’s host can make or break your website, so before you select one, carefully compare the details of their service plans — especially the website speed and uptime — against those of other vendors.

While it may be tempting to opt for shared hosting because of its low cost, know that it’s also going to offer the slowest speeds because many websites are simultaneously relying on the same server for bandwidth. In contrast, a dedicated server will provide the best speed, but it may be too costly for many small- and medium-sized businesses.

A great mid-performance, mid-price alternative is a virtual private server (VPS). A VPS acts like a dedicated server in terms of functionality but still technically uses a shared server. It will speed up your site better than the typical shared hosting without breaking the bank.

Keep your site lean

The leaner your site is, the faster it will be. To create a lean site, be mindful of these four aspects:

  1. Theme – While the promise of a versatile theme can spark the imagination, implementing one can set you back in terms of speed. When a theme has a ton of features, the huge amount of code that powers those features can bog down your site. Avoid this by testing the theme demos to see how long they take to load. If the loading time is more than three seconds, look for another theme that loads faster.
  2. Design – Design elements can also dramatically slow down your site. Simple sites are faster, so carefully consider the ads, images, and extras that you’re thinking of adding.
  3. Plugins – Not all plugins are created equal; some run fast and others slow. To tell one from the other, use special plugins that show the impact a plugin has on your site’s load time. What’s more, think twice before installing a plugin because having fewer plugins translates to a faster site load time.
  4. Images – While many raw images are around 3,000 to 4,000 pixels wide, most featured images are only 600 to 800 pixels wide. To reduce image weight and thus gain a faster site, resize your site’s images to the exact size they’ll appear on screen.

Leverage speed-boosting plugins

Use plugins that speed up your site. Cache plugins like W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache can provide more speed by caching every aspect of your site, thereby reducing its download times.

Another helpful plugin is Lazy Load. It boosts your site’s speed by loading the elements at the top of the website first, then loading subsequent elements as one scrolls down. But before installing the Lazy Load plugin, make sure to check your Theme Options to see if it’s already included.

Use redirects sparingly

Web pages that point to your old URLs can really slow down your site, so make sure to avoid or limit them. Also use the Redirect mapper tool or similar alternatives to uncover redirects that you don’t need.

Implementing some or all of the tips above will surely speed up your WordPress site’s speed. But if you need more help optimizing your website or in other IT matters, just give us a call.

Ask yourself what your website is doing for you and whether it’s aligned with your business needs and objectives. The GCInfotech professional web design team is here to help.

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. SOURCE

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Images and SEO
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How website images affect SEO

When working with web platforms like WordPress, there are three letters that induce anxiety in any business owner: SEO (search engine optimization). It’s one of the most confusing aspects of running a business, and web apps that rate your SEO with no more than a red or green light don’t make it any easier. Read on to find out whether the images on your site are the cause of that annoying red light.

Do images really affect SEO?

One of the reasons images tend to be overlooked when auditing SEO is because it’s easy to forget just how many images your website has. Maybe you only had a few photos on your homepage when you first built your site. Over time, however, you probably added more visual elements to blog posts, landing pages, and About Us page — drastically increasing the impact of your images on your SEO.

Image resolution and load speed

The first thing to check is how your images affect your site’s load speed. If you’re using ultra high-resolution photos, those accessing your site on mobile devices or using satellite data connections will have trouble loading your site. Site load times affect your site’s ranking on Google, so make sure to pair your images down to a more reasonable resolution and save them as web-friendly file types.

  • Choose the JPEG format for illustrations or large photos since it provides clarity and good colors in a smaller file size.
  • Select the PNG format if you want to preserve background transparency.
  • Use the SVG format for icons and logos. Combine this with Javascript or CSS to resize SVG images without losing quality.

Keywords and image title

The days of keyword-stuffing are long gone, but that doesn’t mean you can get away with uploading images with filenames like “DSC2558.jpg”. When adding images to your website, make sure their names are relevant to their content, such as “gym-trainer-helping-lift.jpg” or “call-center-customer-service.jpg”. This makes it easier for search engines to derive information from the images on a page.

Alt text and title text

Even though Google is getting better at recognizing image content without any help from text identifiers, describing your images in your website’s back end is still important for SEO. Every image on your site should have enough text-based information without disrupting the user experience.

To see how this works in WordPress, open your site dashboard and click on Media. This will display all the uploaded images, videos, and audio. Click on any photo to access the text editing tools. Whatever you include in the Caption field will be shown below the image, so check that it corresponds with your content. If not, skip it. In this case, user experience takes priority over SEO.

The Alternative Text and Description fields will be visible to visitors only if the image doesn’t load or if they select it manually. They may not seem that important, but these should be considered nonnegotiable for SEO purposes.

Check that your site’s images are properly optimized before requesting another SEO report. If your score changes, audit your image optimizations regularly. If you’re still seeing red, there are a number of web- and cloud-based platforms that can help improve your content. Give us a call today to find out more!

Ask yourself what your website is doing for you and whether it’s aligned with your business needs and objectives. The GCInfotech professional web design team is here to help.

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. SOURCE

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Top 5 tips for a successful web conversion

Grabbing people’s attention and converting them to prospective customers is the goal of any professional website. To do that, you need to create a terrific-looking and user-friendly site that encourages visitors to sign up for eBooks, consultations, and other services. Be sure your website follows these five rules that make it easier to convert visitors.

1. Optimize your website for mobile devices

More people are now surfing the web on the go via smartphones, tablets, and laptops. If you want a piece of this traffic, you need to make your website’s design responsive to all mobile devices.

To give your visitors an enjoyable mobile experience, make sure your website design fits the screen of any device. Additionally, all elements of your website, including inner pages, resources, and call-to-action buttons should be easily accessible. If not, visitors will get frustrated and click away to a competitor.

2. Make it easy for customers to contact you

This means displaying your phone number in the upper-right corner of every page and providing a simple, easy-to-find contact form. While some people prefer not to give up their email address for fear it will be picked off by spambots, it can serve as another contact option for those who hate web forms. Ideally, your customers will have more than one way to contact you.

3. Keep it simple

People are always busy. They don’t have time to navigate a complicated website, dig through dozens of pages to find a contact number, or try and figure out what it is that you’re selling because your mobile site doesn’t display content properly.

So when it comes to design, simplicity makes sense. When producing a simple website, every page, word, and image you create must have a singular purpose: to get visitors to contact you. Don’t distract them with excessive information, silly games, or flashy animations. Instead, have a nice clean layout so they can quickly understand what you’re offering and can contact you with a click.

4. Include custom photos whenever possible

Say you have to choose between two different websites that sell the same thing and look virtually the same. The key difference is that one uses real photos of the owner and his or her staff, while the other uses generic stock images of business people. Assuming images from both sites are of the same quality, which one will you more likely choose? Undoubtedly, the one that looks more authentic.

So the next time you need images for your website, invest some time and money in quality pictures taken by a professional photographer.

5. Move social media icons to the bottom of the page

Everyone loves throwing social media icons on their websites. And while it’s not a bad idea to show your credibility, putting social media icons at the top of the page makes your visitors more likely to click on them immediately. When this happens, you just created an exit for them to leave your site and never return, and we all know how easy it is to get distracted on social media.

Instead, place your social media icons at the bottom of the page or in the footer area. Remember, the goal of your website is to convert. If your visitors leave before they get a chance to explore your services, content, and offerings, you’ve lost them before you even had them.

Need a website or another solution to enhance your digital presence? Give us a call and leverage our IT expertise for your business.

Ask yourself what your website is doing for you and whether it’s aligned with your business needs and objectives. The GCInfotech professional web design team is here to help.

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. SOURCE

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Why it pays to have a good-looking website

In a recent survey of 1,800 customers, 42% said they’re “very unlikely” to purchase from ugly websites. That’s not so surprising. After all, there are plenty of competitors’ websites that are more visually appealing and user-friendly that they can visit. If your business website fails to make a critical good first impression, it could lose money. You can avoid that by improving these elements on your website.

A variety of professional photos

From pictures of your products to team photos, high-quality images are arguably the most important thing on your website. Blurry, outdated, or irrelevant pictures tell your site visitors that you don’t care about their browsing experience. In-house photos are the best option, but stock images shouldn’t cause any problems as long as they are optimized for mobile viewing and relevant to your content.

Navigation

Aside from subpar images, linking to nonexistent pages is one of the best ways to turn site visitors away. Make sure it’s easy to navigate your site and remove outdated or irrelevant pages. You can’t sell 404 pages to customers, and if that’s all visitors can find, it’s game over.

Clear copywriting

The last thing you want to do is to confuse your customers, so it’s important to keep all of your product or service descriptions as straightforward and simple as possible. If what you’re selling has detailed information such as dimensions or technical requirements, make sure the description is easy to find but not obtrusive.

Promises to site visitors

Any website that ships products should make its returns policy as visible as possible. This establishes trust early. Explicitly stating terms of return is also important because some online shoppers make purchase decisions based solely on the clarity of a return policy.

Even if you don’t run an eCommerce site, you also need to prominently display privacy commitments, such as those mandated by the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

About page

Your brand needs a story behind it that customers can relate to. Every company website should have an About Us page that describes your team, its culture, and what sets you apart from the competition. Whatever your story is, make sure it’s accessible from any page on your site.

Design

Not everyone is a web design expert, but in today’s gig economy, one is never too far away from such a career. If your budget is tight, there are DIY site builders specifically geared toward small businesses. Or with a relatively low monthly expenditure, you can hire a managed website provider.

With more revenue originating online, small- and medium-sized business owners can’t afford to overlook the importance of creating a fully functional website.

Ask yourself what your website is doing for you and whether it’s aligned with your business needs and objectives. The GCInfotech professional web design team is here to help.

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. SOURCE

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