10 Essential Elements for Building a Website

10 Essential Elements for a Company/Contractor Website Do you want to improve your lead generation and get more clients by creating a business website? Do you plan on strengthening your online presence by building a website to get leads for your business? Do you want to stay on top of the competition by having a website to showcase your services and allow easier communication with leads? Perhaps you are about to start building a website, or you already have a site, but it is not performing the way you want it to. Here are 10 essential elements for your Website to get guaranteed leads. 1. Local Address / Map Directions -Make it easy for customers to get to your office. Your customers should not be private detectives nor should they go on a treasure hunt just to locate you. It is not just about people finding you, it is about improving traffic. One of the elements Google search bots look for is the physical location of a business. When Google gives plus points to websites that look more legitimate and recommends these websites more often in local searches. 2. Mobile Responsiveness - In 2020, 96% of Americans were on mobile phones and 81% were on smartphones. Currently, more than 50% of web traffic comes from smartphones and other mobile devices. So, optimize your website to be mobile friendly, making sure the elements are easy to find and access not just on desktop screens but on mobile screens as well. Mobile responsive websites are not just welcomed by users. Google search bots check the mobile responsiveness of your site as it recommends sites that promote better user experience. 3. Click to Call - With the increase of mobile users and smartphone owners in the US, most prospective clients look for services using their smartphones. These future clients veer away when they cannot find a click-to-call button or link. What is click-to-call? It works like a hyperlink, which when clicked, auto-populates the phone's dialer making it easy for the user to call the company. Mobile users are so used to the responsiveness of applications so your site should have the same easy-to-use experience as that of a typical app. Users, or prospective clients, will bounce away from your site the moment they feel uneasy. 4. Proper Meta Description - A meta description tag or attribute helps describe your page and works like a 150-character synopsis for the benefit of users and search engines. This text snippet typically appears on search engine results pages directly below the page title of each result. For this reason, the meta description works like an ad text. And having a compelling 150 string of characters can improve your click-through rate. The best words to use in a two-sentence long description would be targeted keywords that your prospective clients will most likely use or relate to. Do not make the mistake of using the same meta description across all your pages.

5. Proper Header Tags - Heading tags are important in two aspects – SEO and user experience. Think of heading tags as an outline to the content of your website. Structurally, this helps search engines understand the context of each of your page and what each page has been setup for and to which audience to recommend it to. Search engines, with Google at the forefront, index websites using engine spiders and bots that pay close attention to the content of H1 tags. Usability-wise, work the same way as headings and subheadings in a magazine or news article. These headings let the users know what each topic is about, and where each talking point begins and ends. In setting up your Header Tags, ensure that each page has an H1 that appears at the top of each page. Do not use the same H1 more than once and each H1 should explain in a concise manner what the page is all about. Which is why it is of utmost importance to include relevant keywords in each H1 tag. 6. Clear Call to Action - Your call to action can help motivate a user to take the next step in becoming one of your newest clients. Most users are so reliant on buttons and links in helping them determine the next step they need to do, or next action they need to take. For example, a reader who is so engaged in a news article that spans 2 web pages, will instinctively look for the “next” button. Online shoppers expect an “Add to Cart” or “Buy Now” button to initiate the purchase. On the other hand, buttons and links has the capacity to influence a user to do something they originally did not intend to. Some unseeming user may become a buyer if there is an ad or button compelling enough to make them hit that subscribe button or submit their personal info. For these reasons, you need to include a clear Call to Action in each page if you want to increase the conversion rate of your website. Your website is not just a business card, nor a brochure. Treat it as your primary salesman and give it the capacity to close deals. 7. High Page Speed Insights Score - The speed of your site is directly proportional to its bounce rate and SEO. Users prefer sites that have faster loading times. Getting stuck at a page loading for more than 3 secs means goodbye. On the other hand, Google and most search engines favor sites that promote positive user experience. In Google’s arsenal of tools, you will find Page Speed Insights, which analyzes the content of each page. From the data it gathers and analyzes, the tool provides tips on how to increase the page speed. There are a lot of other online tools that claim to measure page speed, but why rely on other tools when you know Google will rely on its own measuring tool? Use Page Speed Insights to monitor improvements in your page speed as you make necessary changes. The tool will tell you whether you need to optimize your pictures, minimize use of widgets, switch to a better host, minify your files, and host your videos to other sites. 8. Alt Text - You can exert tons of effort in your meta description, headings, open graphs, page titles and other SEO parameters, but missing out on Image Alt Text could lose you a lot of opportunities to be ranked higher. What is Image Alt Text? Image Alt Text is the string of words that you tag to each image in your site. It allows Google’s bots to identify what the images on your site are about. How does it generate traffic? Whenever you search in Google, there is an option to look at image results. If you have adequately tagged Alt Text to your images, they get indexed and recommended in search results. In a way, your images become hyperlinked search

results that generate more traffic to your site. In most web builders, Alt Text can be easily assigned by editing the image and accessing image settings. 9. Open Graph - Back in 2010, Facebook introduced the concept of Open Graph, the purpose of which is to integrate Facebook with other sites. The simplest way to explain open graph meta tags is the information that travels from a website to Facebook when a page is shared. Like when you share a certain article from your blog to Facebook, a clickable image shows up. There is a certain level of control that you have in which image to show whenever that page on your site is shared in social media. Why is it important? Social media generates a lot of traffic, which is a great opportunity to direct traffic to your website. Adding open graph tags to your website will greatly affect the click rate of your social media posts. The images that get shared, the meta description that gets shown, and the thumbnails on your videos are all important. 10. Social Media Link - When you have users on your site, you want to retain them as much as possible right? If so, then would it be a bad idea to add social media links that will lead your visitors outside of your site and into your social media platforms? The truth is, not really. Your social media platforms can help improve your online presence. An established social media account increases credibility. In 2020, over 3 billion people used the internet and the average internet user spent 2.5 hours daily on social media. Capitalizing on this internet user behavior will be a smart move. People trust established social media pages. Having hundreds or thousand of followers, with former clients posting your work on their house on your wall will encourage visitors to get a quote from you. Furthermore, communication is easier through social media through chats, posts, and even online calls. Facebook chat can let you respond real-time and you can even setup automatic replies on it. All the items mentioned above may seem a lot of work and having a team work on these essential elements for your website will save you a lot of time that you can dedicate for more business operational needs. At MonsterFunnel, our proprietary formula will get you to the top of Google Rankings in the shortest time possible. Click here to schedule an appointment with one of our SEO professionals to help you with your lead generation.