You wouldn’t show up to an important business meeting in your old college sweatpants, you’d instead wear something more professional. The same goes for your website. You should want its outward appearance to be professional. Your website is often the first impression you make on your clients, and a confusing, poorly thought-out or cluttered site is not a welcoming front door for them to step through. That’s why building a successful website is so important. The good news is we can help all the way from strategy and planning to development and launch.
Elements of a Successful Website
There are a few things you need to take into consideration when refreshing or rebuilding a website.
- Make it visually appealing and easy to navigate. This may seem obvious, but form AND function are both important when it comes to your website. Think of your website as a clean kitchen, functional but also appealing to the eye, drawing people in and making them want to stay and making it easy to find what they need. Use white space appropriately to make pages feel less cluttered. Select images that help tell the story of your mission and vision without detracting attention from the content.
- Have a clear message on your homepage. Potential clients should have an idea of what you do based on your homepage. It should tell them who you are, what you do and what benefit or value you offer them. If potential customers must hunt through your website for information, they will likely head somewhere else. It can be hard to write about yourself and your accomplishments—we can help create content for your site that is clear, sincere and reflects your voice.
- Have your contact information readily available. Contact information should be readily available on every page. Use headers, footers or callouts so customers easily see how to get in touch with you. In the contact section, offer a few different ways to get in touch (phone number and email being a must) so your customer can choose what works best for them.
- Have an interesting “About Us” page. Your “About Us” page should be personal, compelling and up to date. Avoid blurry outdated photos of you and your staff. We suggest taking new headshots every few years, as well as creating expertly crafted bios that fit the tone of your company while being interesting to read.
Use a Platform that Makes Updates Easy
Our favorite platform to use is WordPress, which makes it easy to do updates, post new content and make changes. It is flexible, offering a variety of tools, and works with various plugins to make it adaptable to your needs. We have created amazing websites using WordPress that are as unique as our clients.
WordPress:
- Is stable and innovative, staying up to date with the latest technology through constant updates that keep your website on the cutting edge.
- Is flexible, which allows us to create a website customized to your needs.
- Offers valuable tools, allowing your website to be seen by more people.
- Is more structured than other platforms, making it load faster, which appeals to visitors.
Our experienced web team also has expertise in other website building platforms, such as Drupal, Magento, OpenCart, Square Space and more.
Harness the Power of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
What your website looks like and how it functions are important, but if no one can find you, all the time, effort and money to develop a website are a waste. That’s why we focus heavily on SEO.
Over 90 percent of online sessions begin with a search engine, so if you want your website to be found when potential clients are searching for the products or services you provide, your site needs to be search engine optimized. We do this in a myriad of ways, including researching keywords that support your business and using them in content to boost the likelihood of your website rising to the top of organic search results.
Your website is the online face of your business, so you should make sure it shines. When it comes to building a successful website, consider us your ace in the hole. Contact us to get started.
