How do I know if I need a website makeover?

Leave a Comment / Featured, Marketing, Must Read Blogs, Websites / By Cindy Donaldson / July 16, 2020 / 404 redirect, ADA, ADA Compliant, blog, bounce rate, brand, Content, Google Analytics, H1, Header, HTTPS, jenn donovan, links, pictures, rebrand, red barn consulting, SEO, Website, website design, websites, Yoast

Truth be told, no one wants to hear that their website sucks. It can be a very awkward conversation especially if a business owner is in love with their current site and is in denial. What may have been cutting edge 5, 10, or even 15 years ago is just no longer going to cut it today. #TruthBomb

We get it, having your website created probably took a lot of time, decision making, and money, but if your website just isn’t converting anymore or it’s very clunky for your viewers to use – then it’s time for an overhaul.

The goal of any website is to convert visitors into customers and if your site design and/or structure is a barrier in that, it needs to be fixed. Identifying the problems that hinder your site from being conducive to conversion and visitor engagement is an important step in the right direction.

Below are a few reasons why a redesign should become a priority for your company\’s web presence and some negative effects you could face by not taking action now.

Your bounce rate is too high. Every website should have Google Analytics installed so that you can review your bounce rate – this the percentage of visitors that only visit a single page on your website during their session. The average bounce rate is about 40% to 55%. Anything higher suggests that your visitors are having a poor user experience.
Long load times. Is there anything more frustrating than when a website takes FOR-EV-ER to load! There are several tools, like pingdom.com, that can help you figure out your load time. If it takes longer than 3 seconds, you should make some updates to speed it up.
No on-page SEO. In order for your website to rank on search engines like Google and Bing, your website needs to have on-page Search Engine Optimization or SEO. Each page should have its own unique keywords and title tag or H1 tag. Search engines use these tags and keywords to create listings and how your customize these can affect how and how often your website is displayed when someone searches your keywords. There are other ways to increase your SEO as well including adding links, meta descriptions, alt tags, etc.
Stale content. Yes, adding fresh content to your website matters – without it you will struggle to attract and retain new visitors. Fresh content increases your site’s exposure in search results – one of the easiest ways to add content is a blog!
It’s still an HTTP. You need to have a secure site and upgrade to an HTTPS site – this lets visitors know that your site is secured by an encrypted network communication protocol. An HTTPS scrambles the data transmitted to and from your site to prevent unauthorized users from reading it.
It’s not mobile responsive. This is a big one! 3 in 5 users will visit your site on a tablet or mobile device. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, visitors may abandon your website. A mobile responsive website means that not only does your website look good and function great on a desktop, but it’s compatible on a mobile device – the design uses proportional units of measure rather than fixed so it can adapt to the device it’s viewed on.
It’s clunky aka hard to navigate. Visitors should be able to easily find the content they are looking for on your site. Whether you put the information on your homepage or in your menu, visitors shouldn’t have to look hard to find what they came for. Navigation can affect every aspect of your website performance!
It doesn’t match your brand. You already know how important branding is to us here at Red Barn. Your website is a direct reflection of your brand, your colors, logo, styling, pictures, and even font should all match your brand.
You aren’t using CTAs. A Call to Action tells your visitor what to do next. It can be something simple like read this article, download this whitepaper, click here to email or call, etc. it gives them direction on what they need to do next to get information or to work with you.
You have bad links or 404 errors. Having broken links or links to pages that are no longer available can really affect a user’s experience on your website. It can also slow down your site’s speed and performance. If you don’t want to check every link page by page, a great resource is com.

In addition to the list above, you should also make it very easy for people to find your contact information and social media profiles – make it easy for them to contact you and follow you. It’s also important to note that if you are in an industry like banking, you may be required to have an ADA compliant website – that’s a whole different animal, but you can read a previous blog about it here.

Don’t look at upgrading and updating your website as an expense – it’s all part of your marketing strategy which should be seen as an investment. After all, marketing is designed to bring in leads that convert to sales. If your website is crappy and outdated, odds are you aren’t making the best first impression to your prospects and could be losing sales and not even know it. Need an honest assessment of your website or thinking of giving it an overhaul, give us a call!

How do I know if I need a website makeover? Read More »

Want to increase your commercial banking sales?

Leave a Comment / Marketing, Sales, Uncategorized / By Cindy Donaldson / March 9, 2017 / attention, Banking, Cindy Donaldson, commercial banking, commercial lending, email, links, method, red barn consulting, sales

It’s easy to overlook the humble email. When you’re serving your commercial banking customers, that doesn’t leave much time. So, there it sits, one line in your inbox. In the flurry of new ways of marketing — Social media, viral content, video, interactive entertainment, the email seems like an “also ran.” That’s a shame, as we’re big fans of its simple beauty (and you should be, too).

Used well, email is an elegant way to market to large numbers of people. If you’re providing financial services, it’s also a fantastic method for building trust with your commercial banking customers. Here at RBC, we think the email is something to be celebrated and enjoyed, so let’s explore using it to market your commercial banking operation.

Why the email is more than just something to delete… So, why do we love the email so very, very much? Glad you asked.

It’s a low-impact way to get attention. The email is one of the more innocuous ways to grab attention, and it can be one of the most useful. You only need to craft a great email once (and hey, we can help with that). Then you can land this wondrous creation in people’s inboxes and enjoy the responses it brings. Email is less “in your face” than other types of promotion or advertising, so it’s perfectly suited to commercial banking, with its sensible and sober approach to managing money.

You can share really useful stuff that matters to people. Emails aren’t all about selling. In fact, if you make them too “salesy,” there’s a good chance they’ll get caught in a spam filter or simply deleted. No, the art of the great email is to build trust over time, and you do that by adding real value.

When you’re marketing to commercial banking customers, they need information and support. Give them insights into their industry, provide financial calculators and favorable terms. Share advice on good financial management and business admin. Providing tools and other useful services means they’ll think favorably of your bank. That really helps when it comes to trust and brand recognition.

Emails are great for embedding messages and links. A good email is never “just” an email. It likely contains engaging imagery and links to further useful information. You can make emails interactive and fun, provide access to your commercial banking products and services, share news and online information, and showcase everything your bank does.

They’re really (really) cheap to send. The cost of sending an email is, effectively, zero. This makes them one of the most cost-effective marketing channels. Yes, you’ll need to pay to develop really good email copy, but that’s likely to be much less than the cost of other types of marketing. And once that copy is created, it’s there for you, whenever you want to run your next commercial banking marketing campaign.

You can reach lots of people. When you’ve been building an email list over time (and you are building an email list, right?) you’ll have thousands of people you can contact. With clever mail merging and personalization, you can tailor your email to each individual business recipient, increasing the chance they’ll open and interact with it.

Now, we know the email isn’t perfect. People get far too many emails, so yours needs to stand out, and that means influencing your readers to open your messages. We can help with that — A combination of the right content, delivered at the perfect time, with a compelling subject line can significantly enhance your open rates and help you sell more commercial banking products.

Get in touch with us today, and let us start a quiet revolution in your bank. We’ll change how you think about and use email to spread the word.

Want to increase your commercial banking sales? Read More »