You’re walking down the street, and you see a new shop has opened up. In a few short seconds you take in the storefront, the window display, the signage and you decide if you want to go in. This is how customers approach your website.

When a new visitor to your site arrives, they’re making quick judgments: who are you? What do you do? Are you going to help them solve their problem? And your website is giving them answers.

While some websites need a complete refresh, there are a lot of things you can do to make your site more attractive to your ideal clients in just a couple of hours.

Set goals.

Start by coming up with 1-2 main goals you want your website to accomplish. Do you want people to buy something? Sign up for your email list? Get lost in your blog archives? Pick a goal, then make your website serve that goal by removing distractions and adding more ways for them to accomplish that goal.

Edit your content to remove the words “I” “Me” and “My”

Your website is about helping your visitors. Writing in the first person is alright for your bio and your about page, but all the other content on your website should be written as though you were directly speaking to a customer.

Rewrite your content:

• Don’t write: “Click to buy my new course”.
• Instead, try: “Click to start today”
• Don’t write: “My speciality is working with creative entrepreneurs”
• Instead, try: “Connect with your clients. Get back to being creative.”

Delete half the items from your main menu.

Okay, okay. Maybe you don’t have to remove half of them, but I see lots of websites – especially e-commerce sites – with 6-10 items in their main menu (also called navigation). Humans can only process about seven pieces of information at a time, so if you’re sitting in that 6-10 range, your visitors are probably tuning things out. Instead, aim for no more than 4-5.

But what if all 6-10 pages are absolutely necessary?

• Bump some items down to a footer menu. People are used to scrolling down to find contact, about, FAQ, etc. if it’s not at the top.
• Make use of hierarchical navigation, e.g. click on “jewelry” then click on “rings” instead of having rings, necklaces, bracelets, and tiaras all listed separately in the main menu.

Show your newest stuff first.

The top of your homepage is prime real estate, so use it to show your latest and best stuff. But don’t then clutter it out of importance by showing off every single thing you have on offer. Keep your homepage focused on the primary goal(s) of your website.

Tell people where to go next.

So they clicked on a blog post or an item in your shop. Now what? Show customers other things that they will like: related blog posts, your “hire me” page, or similar products. Build a path for them to follow through your site, so they see as much as possible.

Think of your website like IKEA. If IKEA were just a wide open warehouse, it would be even more overwhelming, and you wouldn’t see half the stuff. But they tell you exactly how to get through it, and you always end up leaving with more than you intended.

Be clear, and use the magic word.

“Download your free ebook!”

“Enter your email address for 10% off your first order!”

We looooove getting. If you’re trying to encourage people to take the next step, like joining your newsletter or taking advantage of your super awesome special offer, focus what they are going to get. I don’t love filling out my contact information, but I do love getting 10% off.

Make it easy to read.

Increase your font sizes. Don’t make your customers squint to read the product details on the blouse that just caught their eye.

Don’t use more than two fonts. Period. (And don’t use more than three colors without the help of a professional.)

Proofread before you publish. Grammar and spelling mistakes will make you look unprofessional and erode trust. If writing isn’t your strong point, use an app like Grammarly or Hemingway. They’re like a nerdy friend who is always available to help.

Use short paragraphs. Long paragraphs seem daunting and are more likely to be skipped over. You didn’t stay up late writing the perfect blog post so that people could skip over it.

Make use of headers and subheaders! These help break up your writing into smaller pieces so readers can find the information they want.

Show happy customers.

Whether you sell products or services, potential customers want to know that someone else has bought from you before and been happy with the result. Build trust by displaying testimonials, accreditations, product reviews, or a “featured in” section.

Don’t date yourself.

If it looks like your website hasn’t been updated in six months or a year, people will wonder if you are still in business or if it’s actually safe to input their credit card information.

Timestamped content can appear in blog posts, the copyright information in the footer, and even some sentence in your bio that is referencing “last year in 2011.” There’s no hard and fast rule about what looks out of date, but the copyright should be within the last year or two and if you’re not updating your blog at least every six months, remove the date.

Declutter your blog’s sidebar.

Get rid of the tag cloud and the month-by-month archives. And before you get smug for clearing that out years ago, get social media buttons out of there too! The purpose of the sidebar is to show people what other awesome stuff they can do/read on your site – not send them away from your website.

Produce quality content.

Of course, none of this stuff matters if your photography is bad and your blog posts don’t help your customers. But on the flip side, you don’t want your amazing content to be sabotaged by a confusing website layout. Getting people to visit your website is hard enough, so you might as well make the most of it when they’re there!