Following the global pandemic that we just experienced, more and more businesses around the world are turning to the internet to start promoting and selling their products.

Unless those businesses want to try and focus solely on social media, having a website is mandatory to create an online presence. Websites have become the store fronts of the modern age, so running one successfully is a key skill that all entrepreneurs will have to learn at some point or another.

Luckily, websites have never been easier to design and maintain, and there are a few key steps that need to be taken to ensure that it becomes popular among potential customers.

1. Navigation

There is nothing worse than browsing a website that’s hard to get around, and it’s one of the leading causes for a visitor to leave, leading to a high bounce rate.

This can easily be mitigated by making sure that everything is within reach, which includes having a drop-down navigation button that can allow the visitor to jump from page to page. This can be extended even further by adding buttons in the persistent footer of the site that allows for instant navigation.

2. Performance And Speed

It’s believed that more than 60% of website users will leave a site if it takes more than a few seconds to load, and it’s becoming a very common trend. The best way to keep users engaged is by ensuring that the site works as quickly as possible, and that pages don’t take too long to load.

Adding performance tools is a must, such as a cache tool that can compress all the information necessary to make pages load. Using lower quality images, avoiding too many videos, and making sure that pages aren’t overloaded with media can all contribute to keeping site speeds as high as possible. Doing regular maintenance, such as updating all the tools used to run the site, will mean that it will run faster in the long term.

3. Constant Updates

A website can be either two things for a business: a way for them to showcase their goods and services, or a way for them to generate revenue through advertisement on the site, whether it’s for a new phone or the best gaming guides.

Regardless of what it’s being used for, a website that sits for too long without any updates – in the form of posts, news, blogs, etc – will tend to start losing visitors over time. Having SEO-generated content, for example, is a fantastic way of bringing in new customers that are looking for something in particular. This also ensures that new people are looking at the site all the time, and even sharing it among the people that they know.

4. Social Media Consistency

Having a site that automatically links to whichever social media accounts are associated with the business in question is a great method of streaming the flow of available information.

Customers enjoy being able to easily switch from one to the other, and fortunately there are a myriad of different tools available that allow for this switching, which is usually done through dedicated buttons on the site.