1. Develop an expansion plan. This is the first step to keeping your site organized. Trends constantly change, so develop a plan to keep your website current. Whichever web platform you’re using, look into options that are highly customizable in order to optimize your company as it grows.

2. Be consistent. Colors. Images. Placement. All of the above. The effectiveness of these items will help ease your visitors through the website, and eventually increase traffic. There are so many ways to make your website worse, but only a few paths to keep it on the straight and narrow.

3. Optimize your site for web. According to a study by Akamai, 75% of people claimed they would not return to websites that took longer than 4 seconds to load. What does this tell us? Optimize your site. Don’t place huge images as backdrops that will take an eternity to load. I cannot count the amount of times I’ve gone to a website, only to find an image vertically creeping down my monitor. I’m the exception to the rule (I will make a sandwich while it loads) – don’t put yourself in a position to lose traffic because your site isn’t optimized for the web.

Note: If you don’t have Adobe Photoshop, you can use free resources like webresizer.com.

4. Don’t move too fast. Great websites are often clean, minimalistic, and simply organic in approach. By trying to copy another site or being pretentious, you risk moving away from the identity you’ve since established with your users. The general audience is drawn to natural ideas and realistic subject matter, not content they can find at every other website .

5. Stay connected. If you have a blog, Twitter, or Facebook to keep in touch with users, use the opportunity to do so. People will often offer sound advice that will assist you in staying current and in tune with your audience.