Are the windows broken out of your digital storefront?

Let’s say you have a retail shop on a moderately busy street. Cars drive by, pedestrians amble down the sidewalk and pass your door. It’s safe to say that only a small percentage of traffic on your street is on a mission to visit your shop – let’s say 5%. You’d probably like to attract some of the other 95% of passersby to stop in, maybe spend some money. People are drawn to places with some curb appeal: places that are well kept, clean windows, no weeds growing out of the cracks in the concrete, lit up signs, and so forth.

Your website isn’t in a neighborhood that attracts the bare minimum of window-shoppers. If you’re doing anything to drive visitors to your website, you’ll have some – even I get visitors to my website, and I’m not doing anything regularly to drive that traffic (yet). The same logic applies to websites as storefronts. Your website has the same ability to draw customers into your store – more actually. Unless you have a strong internet retail aspect to your website, the primary purpose is to drive people to your store to make a purchase.

Manage the curb appeal of your website.

• Proofread! Make sure there are no spelling, grammatical, or punctuation errors. If you can’t, find someone who can.
• Make sure your links work. Whether you’re sending me to another site or asking me to contact you, it’s for a reason, make sure I can do it.
• Eliminate anything that says “coming soon.” If your content isn’t ready, don’t build the page for it yet.
• Keep it fresh and up to date. If your blog hasn’t been updated this decade, it’s time to take down the link.

Your website is your first impression – make it count. It can be a powerful tool to establish credibility. Make it work for you rather than against you.

And please, please, please, please, please don’t have it play any awful music.