10 effective steps for a great website

Back in 2017, we wrote a blog that outlined actions that would result in your website bringing in more business. Three years on and those principles remain the same…

To ensure that your website delivers more business to you, here are 10 effective steps that you can take.

​1 - Mobile Friendly Design
In April 2015, Google announced that it would favour websites that are “mobile-friendly”. Companies that are not investing in new websites, could see a decline in their business leads as their websites fall down the rankings.

A responsive web design ensures that no matter what device someone uses (i.e. tablet, laptop, mobile phone) your website is displayed on the screen in the most effective way. No longer should mobile phone visitors see a website that is used for standard desktops, like a laptop, which can make viewing content, navigating menus and clicking on links difficult and awkward to use.

2 - High-Quality Content and Excellent Customer Experience
The content, or written word, on a website must be of good quality. Without it you can’t tell your story, attract new and repeat customers, or explain the services that you have to offer.
All content on your website should be informative, engaging and useful. It should be easy to read, and delivered in short paragraphs that match the interest of your customers. High-quality content demonstrates authority and will naturally lead visitors towards purchasing whatever your company has to offer.

Whatever the customer is searching for, it must be easily accessible. From company contact information, product specifications or prices, browsing should be a pleasure, not a burden. At its highest level, the function of your website should be about giving your customer what they want before they even know that they need it!
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​3 - Fabulous Design
Visitors will be more inclined to navigate your entire website if it looks good. It should appear clean, logical and informative, with the correct amount of visual content balanced alongside the written word.

The impact on a customer’s emotional response to your website should not be underestimated. 

Visual design has a huge part to play in how customers consciously and subconsciously perceive your company. If your website design has a below average visual appearance, the customer will believe that this is a reflection of your services/product. Nobody wants to give a sub-standard performance, so set yourself apart from the competition and invest in a website that is better than the rest.

4 - Robust Platforms
The platform upon which your website’s design is built will have a huge impact on its usability as well as how efficiently you are able to update content and interact with visitors. We can’t overstate how important this structure is to the performance of your website. This is particularly important for e-commerce websites (sites that sell goods).

5 - The Perfect Introduction
Having the perfect introduction to your site is really important. When meeting someone face-to-face for the first time, people form an impression within the first 60 seconds. It is no different for visitors browsing a new website and studies show that they spend less than a minute on most of the websites that they visit.

This means that you only have a few precious moments to convey who you are, what you do, who you do it for, and why they should keep reading your site. So make sure you nail your pitch on your homepage, but also bear in mind the importance of content on your other pages as customers do not always start looking for what they want on your home page.

6 - Clear Call to Actions (CTA)
A clear call to action is an instruction (to the audience) that should provoke an immediate response. Such as, ‘call now’, ‘find out more’, or ‘buy now’. The best website designs will include value-led CTAs that will subtly encourage visitors to take the next step and engage with the customer, guiding them to making a purchase. Visitors to your website need specific information before committing to make a purchase or inquiry. By using CTAs effectively, they can pre-empt the customer’s next step and gently lead them through your website in the way that you want them to experience your website, all the while delivering the information they are seeking.

7 - Track Your Conversions
Conversion tracking is a free tool that shows you what happens after a customer clicks on your ad. It is a powerful insight into your customers’ habits and can often be overlooked as a useful tool by some web designers. Yet for every business, it is vital to know how many inquiries and sales are received through your website. For example, have those website customers purchased a product, signed up for your newsletter, called your business or downloaded your app? Conversion tracking allows you to accurately measure your marketing spend, evaluate the success of any improvements or modifications in your website design or online marketing, and ultimately measure the underlying success of your website and business.

​8 - Engaging ‘About Us’ Page
Your company exists for your customers. So by logical extension, your About Us page (even though it is about you) is also about your customers. They want to be informed about the engaging profiles of the personalities behind your organisation because it gives them insight into who they will be working with. They also want to know how you and your company are going to provide them with solutions. Your About Us page, like the rest of your website, should present all information in the context of how it will benefit your customers.

9 - Marketing beyond the website build
An online presence alone isn’t enough to generate leads. You need a strategy to work out how best to broadcast your content, attract search traffic and convert browsing customers into buying customers.

Options available to you include pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, search engine optimisation (SEO), email marketing and social media (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc.). Depending on your business and industry, some strategies will work better than others.
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The key is to find what best works for your business by experimenting with all of the available channels. Ultimately, it’s a process of trial and error while you discover what is most effective for your potential customers.

10 – Revealing a bit about you
The way we communicate these days has changed and there is an expectation that the personalities of who runs a business will be revealed on a website. This can occur in how the content on a site is written and the type of images that are used.

Blogging is another way to get across your business authority, character and ethos. Get into the habit of writing blogs if you want to engage with your customers and show your uniqueness.

Perfect Layout provides a variety of effective website services that can help your business.

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