Whether you’ve decided that it’s time to redesign your website, or perhaps you’re embarking on your very first business website design, your website is a vital part of building your brand and business, both online and off. Either way, here are 5 strategies to get more traffic to and customers from your website.

Be strategic.

In other words, know your website’s goals, both primary and secondary. The more clearly defined your website’s goals, the easier it is for your website designer, copywriter, and blogger to meet these goals. What is the main purpose of your website? Is it to gain leads, sell products, attract new clients, ask you for a free quote request, sign up for your newsletter, provide product and service support to reduce phone calls, or read your blog a few times a week?

Make it user friendly.

Are your visitors able to interact with your website in a way that is meaningful to them? Intuitive navigation, easily recognizable hyperlinks, strategic information design, optimized search function, scannable and readable text, fast page load times, functioning keyboard shortcuts, and good use of white space are all features of a user-friendly website design.

If you're not a web developer or a network technician, it can be extremely difficult to figure out what might be causing problems that you're having with your site. When you do figure out what the problem likely is, you're probably going to end up calling tech support, but it helps to know which tech support you should call. Here are some common website issues and some of the common culprits that cause them.

1: Slow Loading

Determining whether common website issues such as slow loading are due to issues with your server or your page is sometimes difficult to determine. Generally speaking, if your page loads very slowly the first time you try and every subsequent time, it's probably a design issue. If your page normally loads very quickly but suddenly slows down to a snail's pace, the server may be having trouble. There is a third potential cause, as well: your Internet connection. Follow the procedure for resetting your Internet connection to eliminate this possibility or try to visit other websites to see if you have the same problem before you start looking for problems with your page or your server.

At one time or another, we have all visited a website that is so confusing and poorly-designed that it is not worth wasting any time or effort on.  Some webmasters are so focused on collecting information from their users that they overload their visitors with requests and instructions.  Other websites are simply annoying.  Listed here are some of the most common features of a website that frustrate visitors.

1.    Confusing Navigation – If a page is buried, has a broken link, or is not a part of the main navigation menu, it can take significantly longer for a user to find the content they are looking for.  If it takes more than 5 minutes to find a particular page, you can be sure that the user will be turned off and will more than likely never return.

2.    Pop-ups – No one likes pop-ups.  Even if the pop-ups serve a purpose and are not spam, users will be annoyed by the fact that they are being interrupted during their web browsing experience. If you must have ads on your website, then stick to traditional banner ads that won’t be so invasive.

3.    Complicated URL – Website addresses that include many words, symbols, numbers and dashes are unlikely to be memorable and will be less favorable in terms of SEO.  Instead of “http://www.the-best-fly-fishing-directory-on-the-web-2.com” use something along the lines of “http://www.fishingdirectory.com.”  Make sure that your URL is short and easy to remember.

Web designers and developers are continually gaining new tools to facilitate effective website creation.  Compatibility, usability, interaction, visual appeal, and support for a website’s users are all important aspects for a designer or developer to consider when looking to present the most interesting and user-friendly site possible.  By implementing these simple suggestions, you can dramatically improve your users’ experience and the overall performance of your site.

1.    Optimize the search function on your website or blog to make it easy for your users to find the information or media that they are looking for. Tag everything from articles to pictures and videos so that all of the content on your website is searchable.  You want your users to spend a lot of time on your website, but you don’t want that time to be spent digging around for information that should be readily available.

2. Include links to all of your social network profiles on your homepage.  Visitors who are genuinely interested in you or your business should be able to easily connect with you via social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.  By including these links, your users can get more involved in learning about your company and will get the feeling that there are real, compassionate people behind your website.

3. Create landing pages that direct users to the content that is most relevant to them.  Landing pages are convenient for your users because they can cut down on the time it takes for them to navigate through your website.  Landing pages can dramatically improve conversions from website visitors to leads by providing users with a direct path to the page or form you are hoping they will use.

4. Optimize your website for the iPhone and other mobile devices by creating a version of your site that is readable and usable on the popular mobile browsers.  Make sure that all text and media is formatted correctly for the smaller screen size and that your website’s style stays intact. Media Contour has an informative iPhone tutorial to get you started with making your website mobile-friendly.