Why do you have a Business Website Design? Or, if you are looking at launching a new one or redesigning the web presence you have, what will be the purpose of the improvements?
A surprising number of clients don’t have a great answer to this question. They invest in a website because they “need one,” or because their competitors have been gaining ground online. Each of those is an understandable concern, particularly in the digital age, but they don’t really answer the key question: what is your business website actually good for?
In our view, a website is only valuable if it generates conversions. Those can be sales, leads, phone calls, email registrations, or something else. But, if those results aren’t coming in, then your web presence is a waste of time, money, and effort.
Knowing that, let’s look at a few of the elements you have to have in place to generate conversions through the web…
An Understanding of Your Audience
Before you can create sales or leads from your website, you have to know who your buyers are and what they are interested in. That’s why we place such a big priority on market research. For example, if your audience is in Yorkville, you would consider researching Yorkville Small Businesses that need your services. It’s easy to skip over, but it makes an enormous difference when designing your campaigns and putting them into action.
An Interesting and Credible Design
Generic-looking websites don’t create trust in your company, and neither do layouts that are hard to understand. Before people will pick up the phone or share their credit card numbers, they need to know your business is credible. Your layout and images go a long way towards reinforcing the idea that your business is legitimate and on par with your competitors.
A Way for Traffic to Flow Through Your Website
Conversions are going to come from your website by accident. People are going to accidentally fill out forms, click purchase buttons, or add items to a shopping cart. In fact, the most successful websites have sales funnels that are planned out in advance. If you know where prospects are likely to click, and how to move them from one page or idea to another, you’ll be well on the way to generating new conversions.
A Marketing Plan That Attracts Your Target Audience
You won’t ever get conversions until you have visits. That’s why online marketing can be an unseen force when it comes to e-commerce and lead generation. Bringing your best possible customers to your website should be a top priority, but in general, attracting more prospects is going to yield higher results. That’s why you want to make the most of search engine optimization, social media, and other traffic generation strategies.
Ongoing Testing and Improvement
No matter how well planned and executed your website is, there are going to be bottlenecks and landing pages with high bounce rates. Studying your web analytics, and testing new ideas, you can continually improve the results from your webpages – leading to more conversions and a greater sense of efficiency from all your campaigns.
If you don’t have each of these elements in your web presence, then you probably aren’t generating sales opportunities. And if that’s the case, it’s time to ask: what is the actual value of your business website design to your company? Is it really helping the bottom line, or just sitting online and collecting dust?
In the event you find yourself struggling to answer these questions, contact SmartNet Solutions for free consultation and business website design review today!