As you probably know, your business website is one of your most valuable resources for growing your business. The online hub represents your brand and your business’s mission and sends the customer to your phone, door, or email inbox. This means what your website does or doesn’t have is important to its success in building and maintaining customer relationships.
We’ve created a list of the nine things your website needs to grow your business online:
1. Appealing visuals
Think of your website as a job interview. Website visitors are interested, but you haven’t gotten the job yet. You wouldn’t show up to an interview looking sloppy, would you? Your website should be the equivalent of a suit and tie, leaving potential customers with a great impression of your ability to do the job. Make sure your images and the website design are appealing and represent your brand.
2. Simplicity
One of the easiest ways to turn away potential customers is to present them with a complicated website. Keep the web address and URL short, simple, and easy to remember for repeat visits. The key here is: that less is more.
3. Obvious business purpose
Customers don’t want to be left guessing who you are and what you do once they reach your website. Make the who, what, and why prominent on your home page, so customers can tell exactly what you can do for them when they click on your site.
4. Clear navigation
As an extension of simplicity, your site needs to have easy navigation. You want your website visitors to maneuver their way to each page on the site seamlessly. Feature your navigation bar prominently at the top in an easy-to-read font and indicate where the link will take the user.
5. Prominent contact information
Your website should feature your product and service information. The easiest way for you and your visitors is to feature this information in an FAQ section with additional information on individual pages. If a question is already a ‘Frequently Asked Question,’ you can assume people will continue to seek out that information on the FAQ page itself.
7. Call to action
After someone visits your site, you want them to take the next step. Some businesses have a shopping cart online, but your website should get people to contact or visit you for those that don’t. Provide a clear call to action for “next steps” on every page of your website.
8. Customer testimonials
Consumers are looking for third-party recommendations more than ever with the rise of services like Yelp and TripAdvisor. Find that information easily on your site by providing customer testimonials on your sidebar or a separate website page. Bonus: you get to monitor the content, so only honest and favorable testimonials are displayed.
9. A reliable host
What good is a website if it crashes regularly and becomes unavailable? Take the time to research hosting services to choose the right one to offer your reliable services for consistent performance.
