It’s essential in today’s world that your company has a website. Not only is the website itself critical, but the design itself also matters. As many as 75% of consumers admit that they make a judgment regarding a company’s credibility based on website design. Whether you’re considering hiring a web design company or building your website on your own, there are certain features that you want to make sure it has when you’re ready to launch.
Intuitive Navigation
The navigation bar on your website is an important piece to funneling your customers or clients to the parts of your website that will prompt or complete a sale. It’s recommended that you follow the three-click rule, which says that any important point that users are trying to reach on your site should be within three clicks of the home page. This means that it shouldn’t take users more than three clicks of the mouse to get to the information that they’re looking for because they can get frustrated and leave.
An important part of following the three-click rule is organizing your navigation to be intuitive to the user. Design the navigation bar with top-level links that display directly on the bar, then consider the secondary links that you want to put under each. The flow and function of the navigation bar should make sense to the user without putting too much thought into where and what they’re clicking.
Contact Information
It doesn’t matter if you’re making sales or collecting leads for service, encouraging users to reach out to you is a great way to earn loyalty. While not everybody who visits your site is going to feel like they need to reach out to you with a question, you’re going to have some who would like to. A contact form, your email address, and a linked phone number should be considered the basics for every contact page. If you have a physical location, include your address and a map as a way to help your customers get to your store and help with local SEO.
Call to Action
Regardless of the type of website you’re running, you need to have a call to action. Whether you’re running an e-commerce store, a blog, or simply using your website for brand awareness for a service company, you need to have a call to action. Keep in mind that a call to action doesn’t always have to be “Buy now.” Instead, you can include “Get in touch,” “Call now,” “Subscribe,” or “Sign up.” Whatever it is that your website is meant to do, come up with a fitting call to action to ensure that users are engaging with you and your company
Blog Feed
You can effectively run a minimalistic website that doesn’t feel too cluttered with information about your company, products, or industry by hosting a blog feed. It’s typical for many web hosting platforms to offer a blog feed feature because it’s such a helpful way to ensure that you’re regularly updating your website and providing users with current and useful information.
While blogging is an effective way to help your search engine rankings and draw the attention of potential customers to your website, it’s a lot of work. Nobody is going to deny that blogging takes a considerable amount of time to do it right. If you’re having trouble thinking of topics, do keyword research and write blogs based on what your customers are looking for, look at topics your competitors are blogging about, or use a topic generation website like Answer the Public. No matter what industry you’re in, you can provide customers and clients with useful information in blog posts that will funnel traffic to your website.
About Page
Users who visit your website are going to want to know more about you before they decide to make a purchase or work with you. An “About Us” page is a great way to tell the story about how your company started, your motivation, and why your customers should choose you over your competitors. You can establish a level of credibility by being open and honest with your customers about your training, credentials, and experience. These would all be included in an excerpt about you and your company.
Email Capture Form
Something small and unassuming that you can include on your website is an email capture form. This can be an excellent method of keeping your brand in front of potential clients because you can send emails with updates regarding product launches, discount codes, or noteworthy events that are coming up. Even if your emails get deleted, users are still going to see your brand in the inbox. Email marketing is a fast and easy way to reach a group of potential clients without spending an excessive amount of money on other marketing tools.
