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It does not really matter whether you are building the website on your own or with professional help-these rules should be observed to obtain the full benefits of maintaining a website. The main goal of any business website is to generate leads and to enforce brand awareness, not simply to look good.
When you design your business cards, you have a goal-you want people to be able to contact you in every possible way at any given time. You wouldn't scrap your phone number just to show a bigger logo, just as you wouldn't make your business card unreadable to express your creativity. That would defy its purpose.
Websites also have the purpose of generating leads and spreading the word about your brand. You should plan your website development with this principle in mind-your website should be stylish, creative and original, but most importantly, effective. Avoid any changes to your branding elements, like logo and taglines, for the sake of designing a more visually attractive website.
The internet is a colourful medium, so use it to your advantage. You shouldn't pick your colours based solely on your preferences-investigate what works well in your area. Browse through the websites of your competitors and compare your site with theirs. Examine the biggest, most successful brands from your industry; these companies spent millions on marketing research, so they have a pretty good idea of what works well-they employ the experts.
When planning the development of your website, think of all the people who will visit it. Use readable fonts, simple language and contrasting colours. Your website will be visited by minors, the elderly and disabled people-they should all be able to find easily the information they seek. There are tools you can use to test your website, like CheckMyColours.com or GrayBit.com to test how it would look to people with visual disabilities, and OnlineUtility to evaluate the simplicity of your writing.
However you write your content, divide it in small chunks. Five or six sentences are enough to convey a single thought. Bear in mind that the attention spans of internet users are very short. Thus, be concise and to the point. Use headings, subheadings and lists to create interest and to make your content approachable. Internet users are skimming, not reading, so use your headings effectively to sell your product.
Most of your visitors are looking for specific information, and it should be available to them within a maximum of three clicks. The navigation of your website should be simple and straightforward. A menu at the top of the page is enough. It is sometimes tricky to accomplish, but you must limit the amount of your content if you want people to read it. Having more than six main sections on your website is confusing. It's better to discard some excessive content in order to facilitate readership.
Shorter pages are more effective than long ones. They are easy to skim. Of course, there will be people looking for more information, and there is no reason not to provide it. The best way to do so is to create a FAQ section, where you give detailed answers to frequently asked questions; alternatively, you can provide a link below the main content to another small subpage with more details.
All links and navigational elements should be differentiated from other content. You are not tied to generic blue underlines-you can match the colour and style of your website, but be consistent and use the same methods to differentiate links in all areas of your website.
Focus on one aspect of a product or service in each section. Your website should be logically structured, so when a visitor clicks on a menu item, he will find what he expects to find. It even helps in search engine optimisation to dominate each page with one keyphrase.
If you want to implement a search engine on your website, think twice! Unless you are selling multiple products and services, there is no need to have a search engine, especially if it's not going to display relevant results. It will only confuse your visitors.
A good and common practice is to put all the links to your website in the footer. That way, all your content is accessible from every subpage, and search engines can easily find their way through your content.
Your content is the only way you communicate with your visitor, and it has to function and communicate well in order to convert a visitor into a lead. If you try to hard-sell using your website, you will get nowhere-the idea is to motivate people to buy without forcing them.
Use call to action throughout your website content and layout. You never know which part of your website will influence your visitor to buy, so spread your "buy now", "sign up" and "subscribe" links generously throughout your site, but don't overdo it. Two clearly visible call to action links in each section are more than enough. Make them big, bold and visible.
Your frontpage is the most important area of your website. For most of your visitors, it will be the only part of your website they ever see, so maximise its full potential. Don't waste time presenting features of your product. Focus on benefits-people are buying solutions to their problems, not tools. It is your duty to convey that they will solve a problem easier, faster and cheaper using your product. If you are selling a fishing rod, don't show a rod; instead, show a big fish they can catch using it!
Sometimes it might be tempting to copy somebody else's content. That's one of the worst things you can do because it is too easy to lose your reputation online, and Google penalises duplicate content. It pays to be unique-that way, people will never confuse you with somebody else.
Website development is a difficult task, but it is very rewarding to see all the emails, comments and reviews popping up in your inbox. Your new website should give your visitors many ways of contacting you. Providing your e-mail and phone number is not enough.
The best way to spread the word about your business and encourage people to link to you is to provide great, interesting and relevant content on a regular basis. Publishing short (300 words) articles will solicit a lot of attention and will bring your visitors back... along with their friends. That is the best marketing technique you can employ in your website development.
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