The internet is scattered with a vast amount of business websites that just don’t work. There are those that have tried hard to be something and be up the ranks of the web searches. Then there are those that have been non-starters because for whatever reason, the company hasn’t bothered to keep their website up to date. The thing is, a company website is probably the biggest tool at their disposal to hook new customers and turn those traffic numbers into tangible sales. Bad design is not the only thing wrong with company websites.
You may think that you know exactly what a business website needs to get you the customer hits that you want, but while you may be able to dictate the pages that you want on your overall site, do you even know if you’re getting the basics right? Your website is either going to be a success, or it’s going to be a total failure and join the ranks of the bad websites that litter the internet. You need to know that your website is going to be the best of the best. You need to ensure that there are no bugs littering your site that you don’t know about, and you can speak to a company like Exceptionless.com for details on that. There are so many elements to a company website way beyond the look, your site desperately needs to be customer-friendly. You want to inspire people to do business with you, and that means having a few essentials on your business website to get you there. Below, we’ve got five of the most important elements that your company website needs to succeed:
Item #1: A Good Look. First impressions count, right? You wouldn’t wear sackcloth to an important meeting, which means that however polished you want to be in front of your customers, you need to show with your website that you look good, too. You want an attractive website that isn’t too complicated. All websites should be tidy, but yours should be obviously so, with no messy menus and search bars that jump all over the page. It should also be optimised to mobile and tablet use. Your site should be responsive in the design so that users can feel that it is easy to read!
Item #2: Clear As A Bell. Go onto your website and try to find company information. Can you find what you want easily? Are you able to establish what it is that you are trying to find very easily? If you can’t answer that question with a yes, then you should be ensuring that you improve the clarity of your site as soon as possible. You need to add in drop down menus that are easy to find while understanding that it’s the small things that are going to make all the difference. You should aim for your design to be clear; no white writing on pastel colours, please! Customers now rely on the internet to get what it is that they need from companies. If they can’t go onto your website and find what they need straight away, they’re going to be switched off from you. Don’t be muddy with your site.
Item #3: Speed. We live in a digital age of smartphones and tablets, and you should be ensuring with your IT company that your website will load in the right amount of time. Sites that take too long to load will not be received very well by customers. Mobile customers, especially, will want fast download speeds. Sluggish websites invoke impatience, which is what you want to avoid. Slow loading can actually hurt your website in terms of search engine rankings. Keep the Javascript to a minimum so that you can reduce the number of things that have to load. Your site needs to be clean and not too busy and a busy website will affect download speeds.
Item #4: A Professional Feel. While we’ve talked about the ‘look’ of your site, we should mention that the professional look of your website is not the same as the appearance. You need to make your website seem like something that you can trust. A serious and reputable company is obvious from the get-go and you want to project this image onto your customers so that they know that you’re not there to mess around. Make sure that any reviews that you get from your customers are featured on your website to be accessed by all and you can even build a good and trustworthy relationship with photos of your team.
Item #5: Conversions Count. You could get a really good rate of visitors to your website, but this means nothing if you don’t have those sales based off those visits. Converting visits to profit is so important! You need to have a decent number of calls to action on your website, and these should be plain and simple so that people know exactly what they are and how they can answer them. Keep the actions simple and a little stupid, so that a monkey could read it and understand what to do! People don’t like complicated on a company website, and if you can avoid confusion you can get those conversions. Make sure that you show people that you are human; you aren’t just a big industry business with a faceless phone number. A blog can really help here, as you are being real with people and not just waiting for them to ask who you are; they can find that info all by themselves.
Imagine what kind of impression you could make with your company website if you make it as customer focused and easy as possible to access. Those conversions would come through thick and fast, and you would be able to really rely on your website as a money spinner for your business. There would be no more confusion about where you are with your customers; they’d love you!
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