If you are considering building a new or refreshed website for your business, it can be easy to only focus on the way it looks, rather than the way it performs. Don’t forget that your website is the online face of your business and/or product, it complements or even replaces a shopfront, so its importance should not be underestimated.
Your website needs to reflect and represent your business in its appearance, but also needs to function perfectly. A website that does not work to its full potential can make browsing or purchasing a very frustrating experience and is certainly one of the quickest ways to lose a customer, often to a competitor.
When you are ready to consider launching a new website, take the time to consider the below top tips, to ensure you stand out from your competitors, in the ever changing and busy world of online marketing.
- Invest in a good quality web agency
There are many companies promising top web builds on a shoestring budget, remember if a deal seems too good to be true it normally is. Choose a web design agency carefully, based on their credentials and reputation. An experienced agency, will not only ensure that your website looks the part, but importantly they will ensure that it has the right foundations to withstand the rigours of Googles expectations, meaning when your customers search for your services locally, your company’s website will be one of the first they see. - Consider your call to action
Once your customer has found their way to your website, the first few seconds are vital to make the right impression and capture their business. If you are selling a service or a product, make it as easy and as quick as possible for your customer to complete their transaction. If it is a service you are selling, clearly point them to your booking form or telephone number by using an eye-catching call to action. This skip hire company has the right idea, with a ‘call us’ icon always on show no matter where you are browsing, on any device. - Consistency of branding
No matter the size of your business, make sure your online branding ties in with your other promotional materials. Keep your colours and any logo reproduction consistent. If your customer sees your company vehicle out on the road and visits your website as a result, there should be no doubting that you are one and the same. - Test, test, and test again
Ensure your website is tested before launch by more than one demographic. Different people navigate sites in different ways. Ensure that regardless of age and IT capability, your information is easy to find and that the navigation is clear. Also, take the time to check for glitches and typos – nothing shouts unprofessional more than grammatical errors and misaligned sections of content. - Continue to reinvest your time into your website
Once your website is live, make sure to continue to keep the information on it current and relevant to your businesses. Not only does this keep your customers happy, with information being readily available and easy to find, but it also signifies to search engines that your website is worth being crawled. This helps your site to perform well within search engine rankings for terms relevant to your business. - Keep it professional
If your website boasts a blog section, remember to keep any content professional. It’s ok to show out of hours events if they reflect your company in a good light, but just like when you manage social media accounts you should be mindful of your audience. Keep your posts to a purely business related topics, use a consistent but friendly and professional tone in your writing and keep images to high quality or stock bought versions. Blogs are most successful when they provide the reader with something they need or enjoy to read, such as useful information for free or relatable stories. Avoid too many corporate new updates as they will not encourage your reader to return.
If you are mindful of the above aspects when building your new website, you will certainly have all the right foundations for a flying start in promoting your business to a wider audience online and as a result will have a website that you can be proud of.
Kidal Delonix is a contributor to Mr. Hoffman's blog. The views and opinions are entirely his/her own and may not reflect Mr Hoffman's views.
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