Update Your WordPress Site in the New Year

Like many business owners, you chose to use WordPress as your website platform for a variety of reasons, such as its easy-to-use interface, SEO compatibility, customizable options, mobile responsiveness, and multimedia hosting. However, if you aren’t regularly updating your WordPress site, chances are any possible clients visiting it will navigate away quickly, unlikely to ever make a purchase. With 2017 on the horizon, make a new year’s resolution to update your WordPress site to impress and convert potential leads.

Mobile Responsivity

If your company’s website does not perform well on a mobile device, the time is NOW to update your WordPress site. The statistics on mobile Internet usage are astounding:

• 61 percent of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site they had trouble accessing and 40 percent will visit a competitor’s site instead. (source)
• 57 percent of users won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile site. (source)
• The average smartphone conversion rate is 64 percent higher than the average desktop conversion rate. (source)
• 8% of mobile users expect mobile sites to load as quickly as or faster than desktop sites. (source)

You can’t ignore that data. Also, you wouldn’t want to miss out an opportunity to build a new client relationship just because your website didn’t work on that person’s mobile device.

Luckily, WordPress makes it simple to implement a mobile responsive design for your website. Don’t wait until 2018 to make this hugely important change to your WordPress site.

Single-Page Design

People move at an incredibly fast pace, and no one has plans to slow down in 2017. With all of this rushing around, users aren’t interested in taking the time to click-through multiple pages of a company’s website to find the information they seek. A single-page design simplifies everything and allows a visitor to browse faster than on multi-page counterparts.

It might sound like a lot of scrolling but research shows that people prefer it. A study from Signal v. Noise uncovered that a single long landing page leads to 37.5 percent more signups, compared to a multiple page version.

A single-page design has other benefits as well. This layout enables a smoother storytelling experience, empowering your business to convey messaging in a single, easy-to-follow flow. Additionally, a single-page website increases your search engine visibility as the Google PageRank score is applied to one page instead of spread out across multiple ones.

However, it is not always prudent for a business to opt for a single-page design for its website. For these companies, a strong homepage is recommended. Multi-page business websites should use the homepage as high-level overview of the main sections of the site that summarizes all the information contained within. Users won’t mind scrolling through the homepage, as the data demonstrates, and will click off to other pages, if necessary.

The Popularity of Parallax

Concerned that a single-page design makes your WordPress site one dimensional? Not to worry. Parallax scrolling makes it easier than ever to give your website depth.

If you’re unfamiliar with parallax scrolling, it is a design technique where background imagery and graphics move faster than foreground ones while a user is scrolling. A well-designed parallax scrolling experience lets a brand highlight priority messaging while keeping the other details in the mix. Users are impressed with this simple but effective design technique because it gives your site depth without all of that pesky clicking.

Check out parallax scrolling in action here.

Thoughtful Typography

Today, people walk around with multimedia players in their pockets at all times. Smartphones and tablets have upped the ante, and users expect more than just thoughtful and well-written words on a page.

Quite simply, your audience expects everything on your website to be pretty. If you are going to fill a page with copy, it is imperative to make the best use of typography. For example, using different fonts or type sizes are two easy methods for turning plain ol’ words into an engaging tale. WordPress offers as many fonts as there are stars in the night sky, so make good use of them and play around with the design of any copy on your website.

Graphics-Driven Aesthetic

While you don’t want your website to be a barrage of imagery, it’s crucial to incorporate high-quality, relevant graphics into your WordPress site. This isn’t just artwork for the sake of making your site look nice. These images have to be a part of the experience and express a tone, mood, theme, or message to your audience. Think of infographics, unique logos, and pull quotes to get you started.

Take a breath. This all probably sounds like a lot of work to do just to update a WordPress site, but there’s an easy solution: work with talented experts who can transform your website into a lead generation machine.  Also, invest in ongoing website maintenance to insure your business website is always fresh and up-to-date.

Ready to improve your WordPress website in 2017? Contact us now to discuss the best strategy for your company’s site.