Five Essentials For a Great Business Website
Your website is often the first contact a potential customer has with your business and lets them know what your business is all about. A great website will leave the visitor feeling assured that your business is the real deal. A poor website will mean you have a good chance of losing a potential customer forever. It really is that important!
Here are 5 essentials for a great website that converts more leads into sales:
1. THE 3 CLICK RULE
This is simple but often forgotten or ignored. The rule is simple; no page on your website should be more than 3 clicks away. This will give the website visitor quick access to all the information you are providing and will ensure they don't get lost while browsing. If a visitor feels lost or confused you may lose them forever!
2. HTTPS
You may have noticed that many websites now begin with "HTTPS" instead of "HTTP". While you don't need to know the technical details of the protocol, it certainly helps to know the difference. In short, HTTPS is more secure (the 'S' actually stands for 'secure'). If your website needs to collect any data from a user (personal details, credit card etc), you should be using HTTPS for their security. Even if you don't collect any user information, Google are now giving a higher ranking score to HTTPS websites, so if you want to boost your SEO you better get on board with HTTPS!
3. SITEMAP
A sitemap is like a blueprint to your website. It allows search engines to efficiently scan your site for relevant data. In the words of Google "A sitemap is a file where you can list the web pages of your site to tell Google and other search engines about the organisation of your site content. Search engine web crawlers like Googlebot read this file to more intelligently crawl your site". Just like HTTPS, having a sitemap will improve your SEO with a higher search ranking.
4. ONE MAIN CTA PER PAGE
When a visitor lands on a page of your website you should be very clear about what you want them to do. This means having only one main call-to-action (CTA) per page. Ensure this CTA is highly visible and clearly marked. For example, if you have a page on your site about an upcoming event that you are seeking interest for, your main CTA might be to sign the page visitor up to your newsletter. In this case your CTA might be a "sign up to our newsletter" button placed in clear view. Use contrasting colours and ensure the CTA stands out. You can have other CTA's on the page, such as social media icons, but these should not distract the viewer from the main purpose of the page.
5. CONSISTENCY
Consistency is key to ensuring your brand design is planted in the minds of anyone who visits your website. If your website uses consistent image types, colours, fonts etc. your brand will be much easier to recognise and this recognition builds trust among your potential customers. Alternatively, if your brand design is all over the place you will only add confusion to the visitor and risk them leaving your website altogether.