A Website Google Loves
Build your website for your target audience.
- Add value & meet needs
- Tell your story
- Build trust
- Delve into detail
So how do you build a great website for your target audience that google loves?
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 needs. Ultimately, those technical requirements are growing in importance as Google gets better and better at what he does. Then we want to optimise all the new content on the site so it has the right headings, the right description, and the right layout. If it’s a visual product it’s showing that the images have good titles. All these things are still important.
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 when choosing a company to work with.
- They need to be impressed with what they see
- They need to emotionally connect with your value proposition and core messaging
- It has to answer their questions
- It needs to address their concerns and feels
- They need to see “your story”
- They need to completely trust your ability to fulfil their needs
- Your products or services must be simple, clear and easy to understand
- 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
Requirements:
It adds value to me!
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 throughout their time on your website. What does a great user journey and experience look like?
Take me 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 the value proposition 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 you 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 products or services, so you need a good overview and summary of the products or services you offer. You want target audience specific pages that demonstrate the value, benefits and features that you bring to each audience. For example, if your target audience is a small business, you want a whole section dedicated to small business and how you help them and what the outcomes you’re going to generate for them etc. You must also have a great about us page. You need to be impressing me on every page.
I need to trust you
You need to be providing all the social proof that shows you are as good as you say you are. What are the trust markers that demonstrate you are the best in the game? What are the case studies, testimonials, logos, awards, media coverage and history of your business, which will 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 it has expanded, how it’s contracted, who are the core staff? And tell their story too. That’s equally important (including what their favourite food is? Funnily enough, favourite food is the most looked at part of an about us page).
Some people love detail
So delve into detail as much as you can. What’s that next level of detail for each and every product and service? 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 microscopic level. So let’s start with a summary section and then give the ability to delve deeper, and then click on the next bit of detail and then from that, the next bit of detail and so on.
Everybody is different
You need to cater to everybody’s needs when we’re giving more and more information as we go through the mix. Ultimately, for each product and service, you want to have a really good amount of quality, solid information around features and benefits. But some people want to get technical, right? So give them as much technical information as you can around those products and services and how each will benefit them.
People learn differently
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
Most importantly...
Share your gift and educate your target audience, industry and the public at large. How are you continually adding really good value for free to your 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. You want to make sure you have a great active blog and education section. And that’s really what the next section is all about.
It's time to build amazing digital assets.
Wrapping all those things together is what builds our businesses great digital assets that produce financial returns today and well into the future. These assets are things that can continually add value to your business and to your target audience. This happens throughout the marketing and sales funnel, especially around awareness, interest and the decision making process. You want some great digital assets that continually add value and build up the impression people have of your business and your services.
It comes down to great content, great eBooks, great free resources, great little tasters.
Think about what is the:
- First free piece of content that is going to make me go “Wow I need to check these guys out”
- Second digital asset that is going to make me go “Hmmm that’s really good advice that I can implement into my life today"
- Third trojan horse: What’s the relatively cheap and quick way to add value to your target audience by allowing them to put a toe in the water, but also opens the door to more products or services down the track?
- Fourth: Shut up and take my money because you impressed my socks off with the three things above.
It’s time to do great digital marketing!
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