Today’s topic is one that I’ve talked to a fair amount about over the years. But it’s one that I felt really needed to be brought up again today. So the topic is your website, and the responsive nature, along with the content on your site.
People are sitting home, as you know, now more than they ever have been before, and they’re looking at anything and everything. Granted, they’re obsessing with the news, and they’re reading whatever news site they like the most. And they’re checking in on their kids’ schools, and looking at whatever social media stuff is being put out there – neighborhood pages and sites like nextdoor.com. So they’re, they’re definitely doing that.
However, there’s also lots of other stuff that they’re searching for that has nothing to do with the Coronavirus. You could say that while people are looking for more health related things now more than ever, and prepping and food and sanitizer and cleanliness and all those things, well, I would put that in the basket of the Coronavirus.
People have always wanted to buy things to kind of prepare in case something like this ever happened. And obviously, when it actually does happen, you’re already past that point of no return. And then you start to research those things. 
But I love to study trends, and I love to study traffic. And one of my favorite sites is a free tool called Google Trends. What this allows you to do is to research and see what are some of the other things that people are searching for. And I just started looking for different search phrases for all different kinds of business, pest control, mosquito control. They look for rental homes investing, pool openings, just lots of random areas and the search volume for pretty much everything is higher than it ever has been before. 
If you know that more people are searching, I want you to obviously re-listen to some of the episodes of my podcast and literally just the one that I did about going crazy with content. But what I’m finding then is looking at and I just do random audits, and I’ll pick a particular industry. And then I’ll just google 50 different cities, and then I’ll pick a random business rather, on page one of Google and I’ll just audit the website. 
For example, if I was going after pest control, I’m going to Google pest control Buffalo, pest control, Austin, Orlando, Milwaukee, Newport Beach. Like all the different kinds of cities, no real, no rhyme or reason from the cities that I’m picking. And then I’ll just randomly pick someone on the first page of Google. And then I’m going to take that and start to look at the following:

• How do their websites actually stack up? 
• Do they work well on a mobile device? 
• Do they work well on an iPad? 
• Are the opt in forms working? 
• Are the phone numbers clickable or kind of easy click to call? 
• Are they using tracking numbers? 
• Is the content story driven in telling a story?

I’m just going through a series of checkboxes, and I’ve got to give or take 3035 things that I look at. I guess I’m surprised as to how few of those businesses and it’s not just pest control, because I did pest control last week. It’s almost every single niche that I’ve done, and typically we’ll do two or three of these a month that missed the mark. They miss the mark completely. 
So what does this mean for you? What are those things that you need to make sure you are completely buttoned up? 
You know that now more than ever, more people are coming to your website, even if you’re closed, that your website needs to be completely buttoned up. So first thing and to me the most important is your website needs to be mobile responsive. 
I don’t want you to build a mobile app for your website, and I don’t want it to go to a different URL or something like that. If it’s opened up on mobile, I want your website to be responsive so that regardless of what device. Have that screen someone’s looking at, it’s going to respond to that device. That is the single most important piece. 
So you know that if you open up your website and it’s not looking good on mobile, for example, it’s a skeleton in your closet, and you need to have that addressed. And that might mean taking your website content and grabbing a new WordPress theme, for example, this stuff isn’t insanely expensive, you can get a brand new website for under a couple thousand dollars. 
Now, if you’re an e commerce business and you’ve got 5000 pages, that’s a different story. But for most of you who are reading, and you’re talking a few thousand dollars on the high side. That’s step one. 
Step two, I want you to look at the content.

• Is the content fresh? 
• Is that updated? 
• Do you have a page talking about your story, your team, how you’re helping and serving the community?
• Do you have a very easy to find contact page that sends a form to you, that has your address if applicable, that has your hours if you’re not open currently due to the Coronavirus, you’ve got that on there? Your phone number should be at the top left or top right of your website and it should be clickable click to call. 

Most people are not looking at your website this week for the next several weeks or longer on a computer. They’re looking at it on their cell phone or their iPad, for example. So you need to cater to that experience. Mobile responsive website content that tells a story that’s inviting, helpful, authentic content. 
Third element was making sure your contact page and phone number are apparent on all the different pages. You want to make that crystal clear. 
And then finally, it’s just making sure that your site is easy to navigate. So you want to have a search button for example, they can search and quickly find stuff. Does it make sense for you to have live chat or a chatbot through a tool like many chat that can quickly answer some of the top questions that are being asked? 
But if you only want to execute on one thing from this particular blog is for your website to be flawless on any device and now more than ever on mobile. Now more than ever.