A successful website will help your business grow
A website is the the window to your business, a successful website will be your best salesperson 24/7!
How do you know if your website is successful?
In order to determine whether or not a website is successful, you must first define what success looks like.
What specifically do you want your site to do? How well is it doing this? Ask the right questions to get the right answers.
Websites generally serve one of four primary purposes for business owners
- Grow awareness of your business – getting your business found online
- Showcase your business, communicate and demonstrate credentials
- Generate leads – collecting email address/ expressions of interest
- Sell your products & services – increase sales & revenue
Sometimes you want your website to do a combination of these, or all four!
How can you make your website successful?
Creating a visually appealing website is not enough, aesthetics are important but so too is captivating content, user experience & click-worthy calls to action.
Focussing on 6 key elements below will help propel your website’s popularity and drive the success of your business.
6 Elements For A Successful Website
1. Research
An important element of any website design, research is vital both before creating your website, and when writing blog posts or carrying out any changes to your site.
Planning before you begin your website will help you find the right host, domain and platform to build your site. It will also help you write the perfect content and create the perfect design for your target market and ideal client.
5 Areas of research to consider to optimise your chances of success-
- Your Target Market
- Your competitors
- Keyword Research
- Hosting providers & options
- Domain name
2. Content
Creating Content is a critical part of any website, it should be concise, informative, and easy to read.
You only get one chance to make a good impression!
Good Content will attract visitors, retain visitors, leading them to conversions and to clients. Design, whilst important, is secondary, and will support your content ensuring your message is clear.
Your research on target market, ideal client and searched for keywords will help you to write targeted, compelling & engaging content that readily converts site visitors to paying clients.
Checklist for creating compelling content
- High quality unique content
- Good quality images - professional photos are much better than stock images!
- Videos
- Font choice - works with your brand & target market
- Colour palette - works with your brand & target market
- Call To Actions - let your site visitor know what to do next
- Answer questions being asked by clients or in industry
- Make it engaging
- Use simple languare -zero jargan
- Use Keywords, long tail keywords but no not keyword stuff!
Want to know more? check out Semrush 14 tips for awesome website content!
3. Page Design
Your website needs to look the part, it needs to be appealing, professional and accessible. It should appeal to your target audience, and ensure your message is clear!
A good design supported by good copy tells the story and leads your visitor to the location you want.
What makes good page design?
- Start with a goal of each page
- Ensure you make use of Headings
- Clean, clear layout
- On-brand, appealing colours
- Simple, clutter free layout using white space
- Clear, distinguishable Call To Actions
- Ensure your benefits are highlighted
- Include Form to collect details
4. User Experience
User Experience, often referred to simply as UX, refers to the experience your site visitor has when on your website.
Your website should always be designed & maintained with the end user in mind, ensuring it is desirable to view, and information is easy to find and content is relevant.
What makes a good user experience?
- Ensure Website Loads fast
- Fully responsive - it should look good on all devices
- Good Navigation
- Accessibility
- Good Design that is desirable
5. Search Engine Optimisation
Your site should be optimised for SEO, this will get your website found by Google (or other search engines), thus attracting new traffic and potential customers.
SEO should be something you are continually working on, otherwise you will lose out to competitors!
Top tips for your website SEO
- Ensure your website has SSL certificate
- Carry Out Keyword research to help write content
- Ensure your site is up to speed
- Good Meta Title & Descriptions
- Verify with Google Search Console
- Submit sitemap to Google Search Console
- Use a good plugin like Yoast to help with SEO
- Use relevant backlinks
- Work On Page SEO
- Blog - Google Loves fresh content
6. Maintenance
It is important to maintain your WordPress website for security & functional reasons. But also to ensure your website is working for your business and is up to date with all business information.
Trends, technology, security threats, your business, products, visitors habits and search engines are constantly changing and evolving. Therefore, if your website doesn’t change and evolve, your business will miss out.
Top tips for maintaining your website
- Carry out all plugins, core and theme updates
- Check analytics to see what is working
- Ensure you carry out backups
- Change Password periodically
- Carry out more research on keywords, competitors and target market
Conclusion
A well thought out and designed website will be your best salesperson! (that works 24/7 – what an investment)
To ensure your website reaches its full potential to grow your business, you need to dedicate time and effort to all 6 elements above. All elements work with each other to ensure you make a lead generating website that will bring success to your business!
Imagine if you had a website that worked to grow your business 24/7
2 reviews included...you will be guaranteed a website you will love and be proud of!
