Can bad web design hurt your search engine rankings? Absolutely. Search engines like Google demand that a website gives users what they want in the least possible time, in as few clicks as possible, and in the most comprehensive way.
User experience has become a huge SEO ranking factor with search engines. Because of that, your web design and how users interact with it are crucial, and you could be losing business because of it.
In this article, we’re going to some website best practices to make sure you aren’t losing pest control customers because of a bad website.
Your Website is Slow
Visitors have a need for speed. The time it takes for your website to load is a big factor. Not only do customers not have the patience to wait on a slow-loading website, but search engines will count this against you. They want people to have the best user experience online and won’t connect them with websites that provide a less-than-optimal website experience. A sure sign that your website is slow is if it takes longer than 2 seconds for the page to load. A good starting place to check your website’s load speed is through Google’s PageSpeed Insights.
Your Website is Not Mobile-Friendly
Literally, everyone has a mobile device. Furthermore, we are using mobile devices to conduct online searches every day. Having a mobile-friendly website is an absolute must. Having a mobile-friendly website means your site adapts to fit the screen of whatever device a person is using.
Your website may look great on a desktop, but if it takes forever to load on mobile or the images and content are jumbled, people will ditch your site and move on. You want your site to look consistent no matter what device they are using.
You Have Poor or Little Content
Imagine arriving at a website to learn more about it and there’s literally almost nothing there. If you find little to no value or helpful information, are you going to stick around? No way. Your website is your headquarters, and you need to capture their interest to compel them to do business with you. A lack of content will not only frustrate your visitors but will also hurt your SEO.
Get to work filling your website with quality and useful information that describes everything about your pest control business. This also includes making your website easy to navigate. Make sure your contact information is easy to locate, and you have call-to-action buttons to help customers make faster decisions. Keep your main menu simple and make it accessible on all web pages. Easy navigation also means creating separate web pages for each pest control service you offer and each location your business has. Not only does this help make your site more user-friendly to potential customers, but it also makes it easy for search engines to crawl – an important SEO factor.
Finally, make sure your images are optimized to help reduce the server load time and get rid of any pop-ups, flashes, or other annoyances that can frustrate a user visiting your site.
Your Website is Not Secure
The sad truth is that too many websites spend thousands of dollars on a new website and fail to make it secure. They don’t bother to take the proper steps to make their website secure until they face a real threat such as malware attacks or Google shutting down their site. You read that correctly. Search engines are going to recommend only websites that they’re sure to be trustworthy to users. This includes security. If your website is not secure, Google doesn’t like that and will blacklist your site from the search results. A lack of security means your website is compromised and your whole business is compromised.
Final Thoughts
If you want to know how to make your website a magnet for leads, let’s talk. Your potential pest control customers shouldn’t end up on a competitor’s website just because your website design falls flat. We help pest control companies like yours create a custom website that compels customers to act. Schedule a call with us today to see how we can help you.
