Regardless of the type of business you have or the industry you’re in, if you want your website to do its job, there are certain important elements it should have. And, while the trends in website and digital design change over the time, these elements are about functionality.
A simple, easy-to-read and understand web address
The URL, or web address, of your business website should be easy to understand and resemble your business name, or your products as closely as possible. You don’t want anyone to have to work hard to remember your web address, it would just be an unnecessary barrier to people finding you online. And you want as many people to find you online as possible.
A clear and obvious purpose
Think about the people who visit your website for the first time. It should be clear from the moment they land: what you do and what they should do. If you sell a service or a product, it should be immediately apparent, and that you want them to place an order or get in touch for further information.
However your words and design make this clear is the job of your developer, content writer and designer, but this should be the one clear goal. Don’t make it complicated or you risk confusion.
Easy navigation
At a glance it should be obvious what the pages are on your website and how to get to them, whatever navigation menu style you choose. Don’t hide pages by making them only accessible through a series of clicks and not including them in an obvious menu, it looks messy and will disorientate your visitor.
Professional branding
From logo to imagery to words, the look and feel and language of your website should be designed according to your brand, not just what you think ‘looks nice’. Try to involve professional content writers and designers who know how to produce content that speaks your brand and gives a cohesive experience to the browser.
Responsive on any device
It should not be the case that any website is designed now that isn’t fully responsive on, not just a mobile, but any device. Think how many of us browse the internet on mobile devices!
Strong calls to action
Going back to it being obvious what you want your visitors to do. Tell them by making calls to action strong and clear. If you want them to click here to ‘get in touch’ make sure the clickable button says so. Avoid clickable buttons that just say, ‘click here’. Compel your visitors to buy, contact, or whatever it is you want them to do.
Easy-to-find contact info
What if an interested visitor wants to reach out to you and you forgot to include contact details? Disastrous. You could have your contact details in the footer, or on a separate contact page, or both. That one should be easy!
Good content your audience wants
There’s no point having a website if there’s nothing useful, helpful, entertaining or interesting on it. Your visitors want a number of things: from helpful, to free tips, to downloads, or just interesting knowledgeable content about the products and services that will help them. This one is not so easy to keep up and it’s what keeps many digital marketers in a job. Creating blog posts, writing website content must all be done with SEO in mind too. Give your visitors a reason to visit your website and to return, and the search engines will reward you for it.
Excellent reviews!
Potential customers want to see proof of the experience of others dealing with you. This is called social proof and is absolutely crucial in building trust with your audience. If you can publish reviews this will convince others to join the party and leave reviews too.
Analytics
Let the data around your website’s visitors, click-throughs and bounce rates inform your development and the evolution of your products and services. Yes, the data can be overwhelming, but there are agencies who can do it for you and help. Rest-assured your competitors are looking at their data to evolve their offer.
If you need help with any of the above, your web-fingered Cultrix team are here to help.
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