5 ways your website should deliver

Does your website just sit there twiddling its thumbs, or does it work hard to bring in leads and promote your business? 

As with your staff members, your website works for you, and if it’s not achieving at the right level, something needs to change. Here’s what your website should do – and how to make it happen:   

1: Help people find you 

At its most basic, a website is a way for people to find out you exist. Your site should include keywords and metadata to make it searchable, clear headlines and summaries to tell people what you do, and contact information displayed in a prominent spot. You want people to contact you – don’t make it harder than it needs to be. 

2: Give users a positive experience   

When there are hundreds of businesses offering a similar product or service, it’s easy to click away from a site that’s tricky to use. Your website will be the first point of contact for many customers, so using it should be a straightforward and enjoyable experience. Keep branding, colour, and other elements consistent with the rest of your marketing collateral, so customers have the same experience at every touchpoint.

Make sure your site is easy to navigate on smartphones, laptops and tablets, think carefully about what information to include and get expert advice on design elements and layout. Most importantly, if your site is a retail store, make the purchase process as quick and simple as possible – you don’t want to lose potential sales at the last second. 

3: Capture new customers 

All people searching for your product or service are potential customers, so make sure your website is doing as much as it can to pull them in. Navigation and functionality are important, but a sharp, appealing design matters too. After twenty-plus years of using the internet, people know what they like – and a boring, sloppy or wonky-looking website won’t give them a great impression of your business. 

4: Broadcast your benefits  

Your website is one of the few places where you can promote your business however you want – so make it count. Highlight the benefits of your product or service, showcase product photos, include customer testimonials and don’t be afraid to talk yourself up. Think about what makes your business unique, and use that insight to guide your content. Is your customer service second-to-none? Is your product the first of its kind? Do you have a super-quick turnaround time? Once you know where you shine, you know what to focus on. 

5: Boost your search ranking   

There’s no point in building a beautiful, functional website if nobody sees it. Although you can’t necessarily skip straight to the top of the queue, you can do your best to move your business up the search rankings. Use keywords in your headlines and copy that reflects what you do, to help Google funnel the right people to your site. Update your content frequently to keep your site current – this can also help make you more popular with Google. 

Of course, before you start, identifying who your audience is and which digital platforms they use will help you understand where and how you should be marketing your website. There are some great techniques available to apply targeted social media marketing once they've visited your website, regardless on whether they've purchased anything from the site or not. 

Need help building a hard-working website? Talk to us now.