In today’s digital era, your website isn’t just a component of your business; it is arguably your most critical digital marketing asset. Your website is the face of your business, your first impression. Whether it’s a potential customer, a prospective employee, or a supplier, they will judge your credibility based on your website. Your website isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s the driving force behind your business growth.
Drive business growth
Your website is the central plank in all your digital marketing and sales. Done well, it fuels the growth of your business, done poorly, will ultimately lead your business to failure. It’s so important in this day and age that you invest heavily in your website to ensure you have a great website.
Build a high-quality website
But here’s the kicker: you don’t just want a good website; you need a great website.
Your goal should be to have a website that surpasses your competitors and to continually enhance it. This approach sets the stage for exceptional results. When you have a great website that consistently evolves, Google takes notice:
- Google will know that you’re investing in it regularly.
- Google knows that you’re updating it.
- Google knows that you’re sharing cool information.
- Google knows that you’re doing some videos and eBooks,
- And whatever else it may be.
Google loves that and rewards that. We need to do more and more of it and better quality of it than what our competitors are doing.
Build your website for your target audience
This is not about building it for Google. It’s about building it for your target audience and then overlaying it with some of the technical requirements that Google has.
The not-so-secret sauce to building a great website, thankfully, isn’t rocket science. Once again it’s all common sense and follows our own logic of what we look for in how we chose a company to work with.
Here are the key elements of a great website for your audience:
- They need to be impressed with what they see
- They need to emotionally connect with your value proposition and core messaging
- It’s got to answer their questions
- It needs to address their concerns and feels
- They need to see ‘your story’
- They need to completely trust in your ability to fulfill their needs
- It must be simple, clear and easy to understand your products or services
- It needs lots of detail – some people want lots of detail, some people don’t
- They need to have a really good user journey and user experience
Ensure it adds value
Ultimately, this is all about how you continually add value to your potential customers. So let’s give them some great information that continually impresses them through their time on your website. What does a great user journey and experience look like?
Take viewers on a journey
Like a good book, your website needs to take people on a great journey. On the homepage, you’re clearly spelling out your core messaging and value proposition that you’re providing your target audience. Then you want sections dedicated to each specific target audience and where you want to take them.
Consider what other parts of your business are really important that we want to communicate really quickly to the target audience – these need to all be on the home page.
Your category pages provide great summaries of your offerings, you’re telling stories so people remember your brand. There are a few different types of category pages – one is obviously products or services, so we need a good overview and summary of the products or services you offer. We want target audience specific pages that demonstrate the value, benefits and features that you bring to each audience.
Remember, an exceptional “About Us” page is vital. It’s often one of the most visited pages on a website. So don’t overlook it. Use this page to showcase your brand’s story and values, including fun and personal insights.
Build trust
We need to provide all the social proof that shows you are as good as you say you are. What are the trust markers that demonstrate we are the best in the game? What are the case studies, testimonials, logos, awards, media coverage and history of our business (and all those sorts of things) that all add really great trust to my decision-making criteria?
Tell your story
You need to tell the story of where you’ve come from, what your learnings have been, how your business has evolved, how has it expanded, how it’s contracted, and who are the core staff you’ve got. Tell their story too! That’s equally important (including what’s their favourite food? Funnily enough, favourite food is the most looked at part of an about us page).
Include details
The more information you can give people, the better. It’s no different from everything else you do in your life when you’re looking for information, you start high level, then go to the next level, and then the next level and then the next level and then the microscopic level. So let’s start with a summary section and then I want the ability to delve deeper.
Offer a variety of content
We need to cater to everybody’s needs when we’re giving more and more information as we go through the mix. So ultimately for each product and service, we want to have a really good amount of quality, solid information around features and benefits.
But some people want to get technical, right? So let’s give them as much technical information as we can about those products and services and how each will benefit them.
We’ve all heard this, and it’s no different for websites. So we need to provide all key information in all different formats.
- Videos are mandatory
- Infographics are great
- Blog articles are standard, but very important
Share your gift and educate
Share your gift and educate your target audience, industry and the public at large. How are we continually adding really good value for free to our target audience?
That comes down to your blogs, your free resources, your eBooks and your videos. These build an immense amount of trust in whether I should choose you versus your competitors. We want to make sure we have a great active blog and education section.
Leverage these tips to build a great website
When it comes to digitally marketing your business or brand, your website is more than just a digital presence; it’s your most critical digital asset. When you craft a great website that impresses your target audience, you set the stage for growth and success. Remember, building an impressive website isn’t just for your audience – it’s an approach that Google will also reward with more customers blowing up your phone or emails, ready to do business.
