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Do’s and Don’t for your Website
A professional and well functioning website is the cornerstone of an Internet marketing campaign. Your online articles and social media posts should drive traffic to your website, providing the opportunity to present your product and make an irresistible offer.
Do the thinking first
Don’t start working on your website design before you’ve considered its role in your overall marketing efforts. Must it generate sales or referrals for your business? Do you want your online visitors to sign up for a newsletter whilst on your site?
Create goals for your website and make them SMART (Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Attainable, Realistic and Time Bound). Include an analytics package in your website build so that you can measure how your site is performing against your objectives, and if required, make changes to your website to improve performance.
Translate your primary goal into a Call To Action which appears prominently on each page of your website, for example, “Contact us now for a FREE Consultation”, “Sign up for our newsletter”.
Do focus on customer-centricity
Write your website copy from the perspective of your online visitor. Consider the information they will be seeking about your product offering and communicate this simply and clearly.
Include a so-called Value Proposition as your introduction on your home page. This is a succinct one or two sentence description which identifies the nature of your product and its benefits to users. It’s an important conversion factor.
Quicksprout defines a Value Proposition as, “A promise of value to be delivered. It’s the main reason a prospect should buy from you (and not from your competitor).” For Quicksprout’s guidelines on how to construct your website’s value proposition, visit:
https://www.quicksprout.com/2014/12/03/how-to-write-a-great-value-proposition/
Don’t use a free website template
Although it’s tempting to save money, especially when you’re a start up, it’s worth the investment to hire the services of a website developer to ensure a professional website. Developers are aware of the latest technology and can advise you on the best website format and ensure your site is easy to navigate and downloads quickly. My view is that the best way to locate a good website developer is via a referral.
You can always start with a one page website and your developer can build on it as you grow your business.
Do hire a professional to host your website
Select a hosting company that keeps back dated copies of your website and offers after hours support.
I recently had an experience where my website had a problem and I only discovered it after close of business. I was doing a talk the following day and would be promoting my website URL – it was critical that I resolve the problem.
Fortunately my hosting company keeps back dated copies of my website and offers after hours service. I was able to make telephone contact and have my site restored with a back dated version.