No matter what type of organization you run, having a website for it is essential in this virtual age. Today’s consumer is “plugged in,” retrieving all kinds of information online and depending less and less on human interaction when it comes to making purchases or interacting with a brand. As a virtual storefront, a website needs to be visible and inviting. Is yours open for business?
Recently, Hubspot published this handy 52-page guide to illustrate what a website needs in order to maintain efficacy. It’s a highly enlightening read, but allow me to sum up its parts in four easy-to-digest sections that will get you on the road to online success.
1. Visibility on the Web
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the crux of online visibility. It takes time to establish and requires constant upkeep, but is essential to developing a strong web presence. Building inbound links is a form of off-page SEO that entails having other websites link to you. You can achieve this by having quality content on your site that others will want to link to. You can also submit your site to online directories or generate awareness by writing guest posts on other people’s blogs. Since you ultimately cannot control who chooses to link to your site, building inbound links requires patience and perseverence.
But you can take more of an active role in SEO by developing a good keyword strategy within the content of your web pages. Businesses seldom put emphasis on establishing this kind of on-page SEO, so you’ll be ahead of the game if you implement the right practices. Best practices suggest you choose the most appropriate keyword for each page and incorporate it into content elements such as headlines, sub-headlines, body content, image tags, and links. The amount of keywords you place in a page’s copy is known as “keyword density.” It’s important not to have too thick of a keyword density or search engines will strip your site of importance and authority.
Behind-the-scenes SEO strategies can help boost online visibility as well. Title tags and meta tags, while not as popular as they once were, still help search engines determine what your site is all about, so be sure to provide clear titles and descriptions in the HTML code of each web page. Also, generating an XML sitemap helps search engines sort through your pages easily. If you’re uncertain how to create one, take a look at this sitemap generator.
2. Form and Function
Hubspot asserts that most sites (depending on the industry) can have a bounce rate of up to 60%. That means that more than half of site visitors who arrive at a given website will leave it before exploring any of its pages. Effective, interesting design is the foundation of keeping site visitors; use meaningful color schemes, use only media and animation that supports your page content, provide an easily navigable layout, and make sure your site fonts are clearly legible.
Once you establish a design, it’s important to maintain the design’s consistency across all your pages so as not to confuse visitors. That’s not to say that all pages should look similar, but your traffic will expect some of your site elements to appear in the same general places from page to page. And keep navigation in mind, too, as you anticipate visitors moving among your pages. Make the navigation structure of your site simple and visible (i.e. – main page links), include a search box to explore site content, and include links within your copy that also link to each page.
Another aspect to consider when designing your site is its accessibility: how many platforms can people successfully view it on? Be sure your site is compatible with multiple browsers in order to reach a bigger audience. Furthermore, keep in mind the tech-savvy consumers who love their mobile devices; if your site isn’t available for the mobile market, you could be missing out on a huge demographic of the web population.
3. Engaging Content
Web content is possibly the most important element of your site since it drives SEO rankings and provides the information visitors come to your site for. Make sure your messaging is clear on all your important pages through your use of headings and calls-to-action. If you want to make sure your content is on the right track, put it to the test with Google’s Website Optimizer.
Your website should offer value to visitors, not just boast about how great your organization is. Provide free content to visitors such as eBooks or white papers; offer informational videos. Today’s consumers don’t want a sales pitch, they want education; therefore, develop content that provides a solution to their problems.
Once you identify your audience, write to it. Although search engines help boost online presence, they don’t support your business; so don’t create content just for them. Create it for the humans who will come and potentially turn their visit into a transaction. Speak to them in their language and put them at ease with your services by displaying positive testimonials from other customers. Remember that consumers don’t want gimmicks, they want the truth.
Web content that a lot of businesses don’t consider comes courtesy of blog posts. Studies show that companies with supplemental blogs generate 55% more online traffic than those without. And if those companies sell to consumers, they generate 88% more leads per month than companies who don’t blog. Blogs also provide a great way generate inbound links to your site and they’re inbound links you can control because, hey, it’s your blog.
4. Effective Calls-to-Action
Let’s face it… you want visitors to perform a specific action when they come to your site. Make sure to spur them in the right direction with a clear call to action (CTA) that has visual appeal and offers value (such as an estimate, an eBook, or a white paper).
Once you establish your CTA, placing it within your website is the next step. Studies show that CTAs positioned to the right of a page perform better, but it ultimately depends on what’s best for your site. Also, be sure to place your main call-to-action toward the top of the page (above the fold) to gain higher visibility.
Now where does your CTA lead? Develop attractive landing pages (also known as “lead capture pages”) to collect desired information from visitors in order to convert them into customers down the road. Effective landing pages are visually appealing, offer a brief description of the offer that led them there, and provide a form to capture visitor info. Landing pages are essential because they engage visitors with one offer while reducing the distractions of your website.
