Even before the global pandemic, a good website could make or break a business. With more brick and mortar businesses closing for extended periods of time and people becoming ever so accustomed to living the majority of their lives online, a robust web presence for a business is now absolutely vital.
A well-designed website makes it easy for customers to find the information they want before making a purchase decision, plus the information they need to get in touch when they’re ready to buy. A good website allows you to tell your story, boost your brand, draw customers in, and ultimately, win over business.
A great website is clean, well-organised, easy to navigate, concise, modern (in terms of style and layout), functional, branded, and motivates the visitor to make a purchase. If you’re missing any of these elements, you may need to re-think. You can consider the following the five most basic principles of a good, functioning website:
Good websites are always well organised and follow a clear structure. A useful way to envision what type of structure you should be following is to keep your buyer’s journey in mind. As you’re designing each page, your copy, and your content, don’t be vague – know which buyer you’re trying to appeal to and be precise in your planning.
Visit your site while imagining you’re a potential customer from each stage of the buyer’s journey. Take note of any friction you encounter, or whether it’s confusing to find the answer to any of the questions you think a customer might have. Build your structure from that point of view.
Organisation makes a website accessible and user-friendly, so you must be intelligent with your choices in terms of layout and design. Keep it clean, professional, and simple; visitors must find everything they need quickly and easily. If users have to wander around your site trying to find what they need, they will end up becoming frustrated and leave.
That being said, don’t be afraid to play around with abstract background shapes, strong fonts, and even dark mode, which more and more sites, such as Apple, are beginning to utilise for a dramatic, technological look.
As the saying goes, Content is King. Great websites focus on their audience’s pain points and needs as opposed to just what they’re trying to sell. Strong content builds a user’s interest, invites them to get involved, and makes it more likely that they’ll share your content with their friends and come back for more.
Be a storyteller. Remember that there’s a human side to your business – you’re not just a product or service for sale. Tell your business’s story, introduce your team members, and create valuable, sharable content that your audience will remember and appreciate.
Furthermore, Google values relevant and interesting content, so it’s a great way to perform and rank well on the search engine.
Fact: there is nothing on Earth more annoying than a slow website.
Users don’t want to wait for slow content to download – they want their information quickly. Users realise that if they click on a website and it does not load as fast as they expect, they can simply find another resource that will deliver what they want faster. Optimised graphics, video, and audio give a website the necessary speed it needs in order to load fast.
You might need to improve your hosting plan if your website is unusually slow, and be sure you’re auditing your website periodically to ensure that there aren’t any old or broken plugins that are slowing down your site.
There’s no point in having a good website if nobody actually visits it. That’s where SEO comes into play. Search engine optimisation helps bring an audience outside your immediate network to your site. It’s not just about establishing a generic audience, it’s about bringing potential customers that will appreciate and pay for your services. SEO helps to bring in relevant users, and this plays a key role in the growing of your site and your business.
We know ourselves how accustomed we’ve become to having access to things at the click of a button. Put yourself in the shoes of your audience, and always be thinking in terms of what your CUSTOMER’S wants and needs are when building your website.
You may be tempted to leave your website as it is – it’s not broken, don’t fix it, right? However we suggest investing as much time and as many resources into your website as possible. With the world becoming more digital by the minute, it’s a decision you won’t regret.
Aside from following these tips, you can gain a lot of traction with a marketing automation software like HubSpot. Check out everything they have to offer, and snag their free trial to give it a go yourself!
Any other questions? Drop us a line anytime!
