Does our website effectively represent our brand?

Because your website is often the initial contact with and the first impression customers and prospects have of your brand, it’s important to know that you are portraying your company, its products and services, and its values accurately. Clearly conveying your mission and values can drastically influence your target audience.

Your website is a way for your customers to glimpse your brand’s soul and how you view yourself. Are you portraying yourself truthfully and showing them why they should care?

Every page on your website should set clear expectations for users on what the page is about and why it will benefit them. What is that page showing prospective customers? “You should care about this page because …”

Much of this may seem elementary, but you’d be surprised how many brands forget to answer these basic questions and immediately alienate their audience as a result.

If you aren’t telling people why they should care about who you are and what you do, you are wasting everyone’s time.

Is our website responsive?

A responsive website is one that effectively scales down based on your screen size. It provides a similar experience regardless of whether it’s viewed on a desktop computer or a mobile phone.

The statistics on how people have consumed the internet over the past eight years are intriguing. According to Contentsquare, more than half of internet traffic worldwide is via a mobile device.

This data shows that your website experience needs to be just as good on a smartphone or a tablet as it is on a desktop or laptop computer. Maybe you’re of the ilk who like to see it on the normal computer screen, but the information is pointing more and more toward a mobile-first experience. If your website isn’t responsive or appealing to these users, you are going to lose customers — if you haven’t already.

Page loading times are another major factor to consider. Long gone are the days when 10-second load times were OK. According to HubSpot, website conversions suffer by nearly 5% with each additional second of load time. This information-in-an-instant mentality is especially important to the aforementioned mobile audience.

If your site isn’t able to accomplish these two aspects effectively, you could be flushing away thousands of dollars in paid media, not to mention the organic traffic you have worked so hard to attract.

Where do we go from here?

Earlier I told you that if you can’t answer these questions confidently, it may be time to consider overhauling your current website.

With that in mind, how did you do? Do you think your site is up to snuff, or is there room for improvement? I don’t expect you to drastically change your website strategy based on this piece, but I do hope this is a valuable wake-up call if your site is lacking in some areas.

Too many quality brands are losing customers and money because they fail to invest in their MVA: their website.

Do you want to develop a website that effectively speaks to multiple audiences at once? Read my article on website best practices and dig into a brand that checks all the boxes.