The pandemic has changed the way we do business because customers are more cautious than ever about going out into public when they don’t absolutely have to. Increasingly customers are looking to a business’ social media pages and websites for information about new hours, new procedures, special times for the elderly, and more before going to a business. This has increased the amount of time businesses need to spend on updating their digital storefronts, but it is effort well spent since customers are sitting at home wanting the best information before they venture out of place an order.

How fast your website loads will impact your business, especially right now. Slow loading speeds may signal to customers that your business is struggling and unable to tend to its website.

On social media, updates should be made frequently so that customers aren’t confused about the period of time that has passed since the last update. If a post says the hours have changed but that post is from four weeks ago, customers are likely to question the accuracy. During these trying times it is perfectly admissible to share the same information on a weekly or even a daily basis, if for no other reason than to offer reassurance to customers that you are on top of things.

Web pages require a little less maintenance for things like hours and new policies and procedures since entries aren’t generally date stamped for those things, but there are lots of other things that businesses need to do to keep their websites up to date. 

More customers than usual are visiting your business’ website, and now is the perfect time to ensure that it is optimized for those experiences. The biggest thing here is the load time – it should be three seconds or less, and websites that take just nine seconds longer to load experience a 123% bounce rate. Once those customers bounce to seek other options, you’ve lost the sale and probably their business for the foreseeable future.

There’s a lot of uncertainty, and the more information and updates you can give customers the better. They want to know every change and policy you make in real time, updated frequently. And it has to be able to load quickly, especially on mobile devices while your customers are sitting at red lights looking for other options when they are looking for something.

Hosting also makes a difference, especially if your website is where most of your commerce is taking place these days. Businesses can’t afford website outages, so ensuring your hosting is up to the task can prevent business losses during these difficult economic times. Every sale matters and every customer visiting your website should be getting the best possible experience out of it.

Your website is your business’ digital storefront – take care of it as though your business depends on it. It’s time to do a checkup on your website hosting provider and loading speed to ensure your website is performing optimally. Learn more about website best practices from the infographic below.