6 Website Fixes Steps to Make right Now

Entrepreneurs shouldn't have to be convinced of the importance of a good business website. Without one, consumers can't find you. That maxim holds especially true for business owners who rely on internet sales for their revenue. You know you need a website because without it you don't exist. But relatively minor issues can drag down your site's effectiveness--issues that could be costing you money.We're not talking about issues that require a total site rebuild. We're not even talking about remedies that increase the "wow" quotient of a site; that era has passed. "The days of the ‘gee whiz' factor are gone," says Ben Rushlo, director of Keynote Consulting for Phoenix-based Keynote Systems, a service provider that improves online business performance. "The user experience has changed. There are increased expectations." But those increased expectations are centered on the experience--not the technical wizardry--of your site.That should be good news for entrepreneurs who have no desire to become tech geeks. Experts point to six everyday fixes entrepreneurs can make to improve a site's efficiency and build a business's bottom line.

1. Increase the speed. In an era when "Wow" has been replaced by "Wow, this is fast," entrepreneurs need to focus on speed more than ever. Your site should allow users to get in, find what they need, ask for more information or buy an item, and get on with their busy days. If that's not the case, you've got some work to do. Fortunately, increasing a site's loading speed doesn't have to be fraught with tehno-gibberish and time-consuming fixes--small things can make a big difference.

Adobe Flash is out--or at least in decreased demand--say some experts. It slows things down. "No one is even asking for Flash," says Jamie Wilke, a designer and the owner of a web design firm in Colorado Springs, Colo. "People now view it as annoying. They'd rather read information." Quite the departure from just a few years ago when "everybody had to have Flash," Rushlo says.

Most sites need images of some sort, but make sure your image files are as small as they can be. Even large images can get by with small file sizes. Also, have a conversation with your webmaster and make sure anything non-essential is moved to the bottom of the page load, Rushlo says. This will help the important information pop up quickly.

2. Write better product descriptions. Spend some time reading your product descriptions to make sure they're succinct and filler-free. The formula here can be difficult because, as Amy Schade says, you need to "convince [users] the product meets their needs," but the verbiage "has to be short and descriptive." There's no salesperson available on a website, so shoppers "should be able to see a product and know what it does," says Schade, a director at the Nielsen Norman Group in New York City and co-author of the second edition of the "E-Commerce User Experience" report. Writing new and better product descriptions, Schade says, "is time consuming but worth it."

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