How To Get Your Website Off To A Great Start

Are you struggling to get your website off the ground? Read through our 5 tips below to help improve your new website.

There’s no denying that your business needs a website. Even if you’re a small brick-and-mortar business, a website is necessary in order for new customers to find you. However, getting your website off the ground can sometimes be the hardest part.
We Google everything these days. What’s the weather going to be like tomorrow? What street is that Italian restaurant on? And where can I find the best deal on a new tablet?
When your business starts showing up on Google search results, your site receives a huge boost in traffic, eventually leading to an increase in engagement and sales. So how do you reach that point? Consider these 5 tips as a starting point:
1. Register a catchy domain name and email address 
Your domain name will represent your business online. By having a domain name that relates to your brand name (it’s best practice if you can match your brand name perfectly) and is memorable to your visitors, you have a direct path for your visitors to make it back to your site. You can also market this domain name to drive even more traffic to your website.
Each domain name through WestHost comes with email addresses, meaning you can have your business name as the extension, such as myemail@mybusiness.com, rather than just myemail@gmail.com.
2. Keep a functional and visually-appealing design 
Most people will judge a website as soon as they arrive. If they’re not impressed, they’ll generally click away to find a better site to meet their needs.
A good website design will implement appealing color schemes, have a layout that is easy to follow, and will function properly. Check out these web design tips to make sure your site is ready to go live.
3. Make sure your site is fully optimized for mobile users 
This means your website will adapt if your visitors are trying to access your site via a mobile phone or tablet. Over the course of this past year, mobile traffic surpassed desktop traffic. In other words, more people are now accessing the web from their mobile phone than from a traditional desktop.
One way to make sure your site is optimized for mobile use is by implementing a responsive design. This means that your site will automatically adjust to the size of the user’s screen. If you’re a WestHost client, our Website Builder service will create a responsive design for you.
4. Up the speed of your site 
Studies show that the average website visitor will leave a website if it takes longer than three seconds to load. You can improve the speed of your site by having a robust web host that powers your site. Here at WestHost, we use CloudFlare’s CDN to improve the speed of our clients’ sites. This technology delivers websites at a drastically increased speed.
Other ways to improve your site are cutting down on large images and videos that may take a while to load, or eliminating plugins and unnecessary scripts that bog down your site.
5. Have an e-commerce strategy
Creating a structured e-commerce strategy can draw in new visitors that may have never visited your website otherwise. Research your market prior to starting an online store so that you know your competition and what route you should take.
If you decide to try out e-commerce, consider looking into an SSL certificate to help your clients feel secure while browsing your site. We also suggest purchasing SiteLock to handle additional security needs.

You can get started with these 5 tips by registering a domain name and setting up your web hosting through WestHost!