10 Ways To Profit From Your Business Website

When you’re a business owner, one of the most important tools in your arsenal is your website. The challenge is that most business owners simply consider their website another line item in the expense budget. They look at it as a begrudging necessity and not something that can create substantial business growth.

Websites, like salespeople, need to be invested in continuously. You wouldn’t spend a month training a new salesperson and never talk to them again, right? Business owners need to think about their website the same way. As your business grows, shifts direction, and adds new products or services, the website also needs to reflect those changes.

In 2021, we helped many of our clients optimize their websites to achieve real results and grow their profits. What did we target that was most effective? Here are the top 10 smart website moves that can create a positive return to your bottom line:

1. Make Your Site ADA Compliant. Get A $5,000 Tax Credit.

Last year, over 40% of our clients were able to qualify for up to a $5,000 tax credit by partnering with us to make their website ADA compliant, and then claim a simple federal tax credit. This should be your first move in 2022 if you haven’t already handled it.

Under the Americans With Disabilities Act, business owners are required to ensure their website’s content is accessible to all users. It’s estimated that approximately 20% of people online have some sort of special need. For example, they might need a certain font type and size, color contrast, captions on audio and video, or screen readers (software that reads the website content aloud) that aid the blind. No matter if you’re a local pizza joint or Nike, all websites need to accommodate anyone with a disability—it’s the law. When your website is ADA compliant, users of all abilities are able to access and navigate it. This accommodation brings you new business.

If you ignore ADA compliance, there is a high risk of receiving a demand letter or lawsuit. The good news is that the IRS offers a $5,000 tax credit to business owners for making their website ADA compliant.

At WISE Digital Partners, we offer a complimentary website audit that includes a scan for ADA compliance and many other digital checks. If your website isn’t compliant, we have a solution to bring you into and keep you in compliance. Tell us more about you and your needs here.

2. Invest In SEO. Get More Traffic.

There’s no question that search engine optimization is critical for a business. If no one can find you online, you’re missing out on customers who will go elsewhere to get what they need.

The concept is simple—more search visibility leads to more website traffic, and more traffic leads to more business. The reality is, finding a partner who understands everything involved can be challenging. Today, SEO involves the expertise of many people and disciplines, including strategy, copy, design, development, listings, reputation, and more. It’s a complicated but winnable and very profitable game.

At WISE, we build SEO strategy into practically all our client services to leverage the power of keywords, metadata, site architecture, links, and profiles. This WISE approach helps ensure the businesses we partner with are found online and have every opportunity to grow.

The majority of our clients saw dramatic increases in their rankings and organic traffic in 2021 because of WISE’s continual efforts on the SEO front. We offer a complimentary SEO audit to pinpoint any missed opportunities. And if you’re ready to optimize, we’ll get you started.

3. Create Multi-Step Forms. Get More (And Better) Leads.

As a business owner, you want to capture as much information as you can about prospective new customers. But is the form on your website asking too little? Or did you build one that’s too complicated? Do your website forms seamlessly integrate into your website, or are they simply copied onto a page by a third-party solution?

Website users are fickle when it comes to giving away their information, and for good reason. We need to consider what information we need to make our sales process more efficient and successful. Then we need to weigh that against how we present the process and wisely choose the words we use to ask the questions we want answers to. And finally, we need to design and code it in a way that makes the process intuitive and welcoming.

Multi-step forms can help by breaking up your lead generation into easily digestible steps. As a result, you make it easier and less intimidating for someone to fill out. And that means prospective customers are less likely to get annoyed and turn elsewhere.

Take the following example inside an award-winning website that we designed for a mortgage client, Reliant Home Funding. First, the prospective customer is simply asked whether they want to buy or refinance a home.

Then they’re led down a path that asks a few questions at a time, such as:

• Where in the home buying process are you?
• Is this your first time buying a home?
• What type of home are you looking for?
• What’s your budget?

Once the form is completed, the prospect gets a nice thank you, along with a prompt to go ahead and start filling out an application while they wait for a loan expert to contact them.

And Reliant Home Funding gets a great lead that’s automatically directed to the best person on the team to help the prospect.

4. Set Up Online Appointments. Get A Direct Connection.

When it comes to selling your services and/or products, a captive audience is golden. And with an appointment setting feature on your website, you’re providing people with a simple way to schedule time with you directly from your website, saving you time, costly phone calls and back and forth email scheduling.

For example, here at WISE Digital, we offer website visitors an option to book a 15-minute call with someone on our sales team, including our CEO. It’s worked well for us and is a great way to connect with potential clients personally.

5. Install Live Chat. Get More Leads.

Sign up for 24/7 Live Chat support from WISE, and you’ll instantly foster accessibility, get better engagement, and leverage detailed lead capture with a human touch.

We’re proof that it works. Here at WISE Digital—and only a week into having a chat feature setup—we gained a partnership with a new mortgage client because the company’s CEO/Broker started asking live questions directly on our website. You can read our case study to see how we helped transform and grow his business.

Last year our live chat team delivered over 1,000 leads to our clients via this added service. Our trained representatives answer your prospect’s questions and create interest in learning more about your products and services. Chat with us right now at the bottom right of your browser window to learn more.

6. Expand Your Services. Gain More Google Traffic.

When it comes to your website, less isn’t more. Want better search visibility on Google, more website traffic, and better conversions with ads? You’ll want more web pages centered around each of your services or products.

Why? Quality and relevance of content. If my company sells “duck paperweights” (yes, people look for this), which of these two approaches do you think Google will value more?

1. A few mentions of “duck paperweights” among the many other animal paperweights we sell on our “Products” page
2. An entire “Duck Paperweights” page that is linked to on our “Products” page

If you said Strategy B, you’d be right! The problem is, some business owners think Strategy A will suffice. But Google wants to show searchers the most relevant and highest quality content possible. This means that web pages fully devoted to a single topic will rank better on Google compared to pages that only reference that topic briefly.

Of course, having a “Duck Paperweights” page with thin or copied content isn’t enough. Neither is a page that doesn’t anticipate and address questions that potential buyers may have; or a page that doesn’t explain why our duck paperweights are the best.

If you’re not sure how to optimize web content for both search visibility and conversion, contact WISE. Our copywriters and SEO experts have nailed web content strategy for products and services down to a science.

7. Add A Reputation Program. Control The Conversation.

Remember when companies simply told people what they were all about, and those potential customers believed them? Today, consumers want to hear what other consumers say about a brand. Great reviews spread. Unfortunately, so will bad ones.

That’s why we built a reputation management platform that aggregates reviews from multiple sources (i.e., Yelp, Google, Facebook) and seamlessly integrates them with your website.

Additionally—and most importantly—our platform comes with a review capture module that includes review gating, which allows you to create custom review paths. For example, you can direct negative reviews to customer service so they can follow up or send 5-star reviews to your marketing team. We’ve been able to help hundreds of businesses grow their 5-star reviews on average 40% faster with this tool.

8. Add Fresh Blog Content. Reap The Benefits.

Blogs are more than purely informational. They can drive traffic to your website and funnel that into other pages of the site that are set up to convert that traffic into new business. They can also:

• Provide valuable links and backlinks that help you get found in Google searches
• Create topic expertise and showcase your industry leadership
• Answer repetitive questions your sales and customer service teams field
• Give you shareable content for your social media channels

Businesses from every industry can benefit from having a blog on their website. And at WISE Digital, we’re experts in creating premium blog content to match your business goals. It’s part of the digital business strategy we provide for our partners.

9. Improve Ad Landing Pages. Get More Conversions.

Your targeted advertising can make a difference in getting people to convert. When should you do a refresh? Aside from being simply outdated, some landing pages don’t convert because they have:

• A confusing or unintuitive design
• A disconnect between the ad copy and the landing page
• CTAs that are unclear
• Poorly written headlines

At WISE Digital, we help improve your landing pages by focusing on best practices such as:

• Making sure your offer is clear and important information is “above the fold” (what the viewer sees before they begin scrolling down)
• Improving the design (sometimes visual clutter simply needs to be removed)
• Trying different headlines and copy
• Adding testimonials for social proof
• Optimizing the landing page for SEO

10. Raise Your Core Web Vitals Score. Get In Google’s Good Graces.

In 2021, Google launched a significant update called Core Web Vitals. This update means website performance and user experience are more important Google ranking factors than ever before. Business owners who ignore its impact may wind up on the losing end of online search.

Core Web Vitals consists of three main factors:

• Largest Contentful Paint: Measures how fast the main content on your webpage loads
• First Input Delay: Measures how quickly your website responds to user interaction (i.e., clicking a link or tapping a button)
• Cumulative Layout Shift: Measures how much content moves around on the website as you’re reading or engaging with it

If your website isn’t optimized for these three signals, your search rankings could drop—and so could your website traffic and profits by extension.

At WISE Digital, we’ve been on top of Google’s Core Web Vitals update since it was first announced in 2020. We’ve designed and engineered solutions to optimize our client’s websites, and we can help you too.

These Website Strategies Work. Want In?

Which of these 10 strategies are you already using? Which of them intrigues you?

Website optimizations can have a cumulative effect. One strategy won’t be enough. The more you leverage your website, the more you’ll be in a better position to grow your profits.

Book a call with us today to learn more about how you can grow in 2022.