Your website is your digital storefront, and it is likely responsible for driving the majority of your sales or has the potential to.

With buyer behavior becoming much more focused on performing diligent research before making purchasing decisions, having a website that presents your brand, product and services in a manner that resonates with a discerning market is absolutely necessary to achieving your growth goals in what is promising to be a hyper competitive 2018.

Here are six ways the best digital marketing agencies are updating their client’s sites to dominate their industries.

1. A Presentation That Better Reflects Your Brand

When was the last time you underwent rebranding? Whether it was last month or a few years ago, your website should reflect the changes made to your branded presentation.

Your site’s photography, verbal tone, and aesthetic style should match your rebranding. Otherwise you could be attracting the wrong clients that seek “the old you”.

2. You Are Attracting The Wrong Audience

In continuation from the first point, updating your website to attract the right people you want to work with and bridging your products to eager buyers can require an update to your website.

In order to correctly position yourself in the market you must curate your work. Scrutinize the content, crosscheck your galleries and axe the products and type of work you no longer offer.

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Showcase high quality images of the services and products you want to push the most on your homepage and include images depicting their use in your slider.

Finally, make sure all font, colors, and other components are consistently represented throughout the entire site.

3. Get The Lead Out And Pick Up The Pace

According to a 2017 by Kissmetrics, 40% of buyers abandon a website that takes more than three seconds to load. The same study also found that a one-second delay in load time resulted in a seven percent loss in conversions.

Aim for a loading time at three seconds or less. Google offers a free speed test tool to check the load time on both desktop and mobile devices. If your site takes more than three seconds to load there could be a number of reasons why: Poor hosting, heavily optimized images, and a poorly performing theme can impact site speed.

A number of marketing agencies offer complimentary site audits that may shed light in specific areas for improvement.

4. Antiquated Technology And Themes

We briefly touched on this in the third point, but dusty old technology can negatively impact your site’s performance and drive buyers away. Your user experience is everything, and as technology evolves to meet the huge demands your buyers pose, your site had better be up to speed.

In order to stand out in your industry you must be fiercely agile, memorable and steps ahead of your competitors. If your website hasn’t been touched in two years then there is a strong chance it needs a tech refresh.

5. Your SEO Is So 2000 And Late

SEO has been dunked in the turbulent water of change to emerge reborn, time and time again. The latest big change came in 2016 with Google’s RankBrain addition to the algorithm- an AI and machine learning hybrid that enables the search engine to understand the emotional intent and pain behind each search query, and rank options based on its ability to learn as it crawls.

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Semantic search is everything. Topic-focused content that directly presents solutions to consumer pains wins higher organic placement and an increase in sales. Though keywords still have their place, they are now taking the back seat to purposeful content with meaning.

6. Landing Pages Powered By Marketing Automation

Even if you rank for keywords, SEO alone will not lead to sales growth. As mentioned in point five, creating content that resonates with buyers at an emotional level ranks better than ordinary “hey look how awesome we are” text. Marketing automation software that uses an inbound strategy provides the right traffic flow to strategically crafted landing pages designed to attract and convert visitors.

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These landing pages are part of a custom workflow created by inbound marketing experts who know how to cater content to your buyer personas. Also, educate them through a careful nurturing process until they discover that your products and services provide the best solution to their need.

It’s Not Too Late To Remodel Your Digital Presence For 2019

Whether there are only a few pieces missing to a website ideal to convert your 2018 buyers, or you need a wrecking ball and a fresh new build, it isn’t too late to make this year your biggest growth spurt yet.

Start with an audit, speak to a Google partner digital marketing agency to get a good grasp on what is lacking to make your business the industry force to be reckoned with. Reach out to an inbound agency to see how SEO and marketing automation can come together, along with some custom tools, to help you achieve your goals.

This is going to be a competitive year. However, with the right digital presentation and the tools powering it, you can expect to stand atop the podium swinging industry gold.