When developing your business website, the first thing you need to consider, whether it’s your first site or a redevelopment, is what are your goals for the site?
In other words is it to establish you as an authority? To get people to contact you or simply to sell something directly from the site? The answer to this question will determine the type and amount of content you will need.
Secondly, you need to consider who your target audience is? Do you have a clearly defined niche market or sector? Like any type of marketing, saying that you can sell to anyone will mean that you appeal to fewer people perversely!
1. Call to Action
Whatever your goals are for the site, it is important that you have a clear and compelling call to action. By this I mean that you tell people what you want them to do and you make it easy for them to do so.
One compelling call to action is to get people to give you their details (at least email) in exchange for some useful information. This is sometimes known as a lead magnet. You could give away an e-book, report, white paper, video or audio. Once you have their details you can then follow up with additional information and of course marketing materials and promotions.
You may simply want to get people to contact you, in which case please make sure that your contact details are available on each and every page. There are few things more frustrating than wanting to do business with a company and having to struggle to find a phone number!
2. Content
And now we need to talk about content. This needs to be up to date, relevant and fresh. Blogs are perfect for developing this kind of content naturally; if you blog regularly it will inevitably be suitable for your niche market and Google will love you too.
When developing content for the site you need to consider the WIIFM rule. This is ‘What’s In It For Me?’ and will be what all of your readers are consciously or unconsciously interested in. They will not be particularly interested in your background except how it relates to how you can help them. What problems do you solve for your ideal clients? What questions do you get asked frequently about your work?
3. Social Proof
There’s one further area of your website which is essential and that is where you put your social proof i.e. testimonials, case studies etc. Your visitors will be comforted by the evidence that you can help other people who are ‘just like them’. Make sure you keep a record of any testimonials you get but also ask for them from satisfied clients or customers. If you can get some video testimonials as well they add an extra layer of social proof.
In addition to testimonials make sure that you include links to your social media profiles and make it easy for people to share your content via social media as well.
At this point you may be thinking to yourself but what about the design or search engine optimisation?
Does the design matter? Well, yes and no! The design of your site has to appeal to your target audience or at least not turn them off completely but whether you use one shade of blue or another doesn’t matter a jot and isn’t worth obsessing about. It’s more important that your site is clear and easy to navigate than the exact colours or layout.
Search Engine optimisation (SEO) is a huge subject and isn’t within the remit of this article but briefly if you are providing fresh, up to date and relevant content on a regular basis you are well on the way to winning in the SEO stakes.
If you consider your call to action, your content and social proof I can guarantee you will develop a better website than many of your competitors.
Jean Maund AKA Just Ask Jean, specialises in helping expert professionals spread their message to a wider audience through product creation and online marketing. She is passionate about translating Geek in to English and making technology accessible to all. Visit www.justaskjean.co.uk to find out more.
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