What makes a great website?
This post is for those small business owners that are forever replacing their websites and providers every 3-5 years. So if your not getting the results you want and need this will be a good place to start. I will discuss the reasons why a website is important and what I believe to be the most important factors to consider.
I hope by the end of this post you will feel you have a much better understanding of the role your website plays in your business.
Its not yours!
That's right the first thing I believe you need to get your head round is that your website is less about you and all about your customers and prospects. Think about who the people are that are hopefully going to visit your website, what are they looking for and what do they want to achieve. So many websites today are the equivalent of an online brochure. They are all "me, me, me". They talk about what they do and how great they are. Often using technical jargon & acronyms, they often offer very little to the customer or prospect other than "here we are, now buy from us", which 99% of the time means calling them on the phone.
Understand that today's consumers are looking for a very different experience and no intention of picking up the phone unless their objective in the first place was to get your phone number.
What they are looking for is the answer to their questions and quickly. More on this later.
Objective
Every single visitor who comes to your site has one objective and its always the same, "to find what they want and fast". Now what that is will of course be different each time in terms of what they want to find, but do not underestimate the fact that if they don't find it within around 3 clicks then they are gone.
Nobody has time or patience to dig around websites hoping to find what they want. They expect to find it straight away. How you do that is by making that information really easy to find.
User Journeys
To get people to "what they want and fast" you must first understand that not every single person who visits your site is ready to buy right now. In fact the majority of people who visit business to business sites (B2B) are in fact researching and looking for answers to their questions. The same can be said for Business to consumer (B2C) although they might have a little more buying intent but still will be researching.
If you understand that regardless of where they are in the buying process they will have questions, it is the role of your website to take them to the answers as quick as possible.
This all starts with the page the user lands on and this may not be your homepage.
From what ever page they land on the visitor will have an expectation, "am I in the right place?" Ensure that it is crystal clear what each page on your site is about and what you are asking them to do now and next.
Never ask a visitor to do too many things, by having lots of calls to action (do something now) you will confuse the visitor and they will do nothing. Keep the using going by providing next steps of navigation both at the top and bottom of every page. This way if the visitor is not sure they are on the right page the can navigate somewhere else from the top and if they get to the bottom they know what to do or where to go next.
If a visitor is left to work it out for themselves they will simply get frustrated and leave.
 Experience
Your website is a key component in the experience you are providing right now. Potential customers will make a judgement on you and your company based on your website and how easy it is to learn and do business with you.
Is your website answering their questions? is your website taking them on journeys? What story are you telling through using your website?
Your site should be a living and breathing hub of resources where you demonstrate your expertise and teach to your prospective customers.
Content
Knowing that your site should be a hub and wealth of information its goes without saying that you answer all of the questions though content. This could be blog posts, videos, Â or audio. Which ever one answers the question best.
Video is a a great way to engage and stimulate interest on your website and i would highly recommend putting video on your site. It will be a 24/7 sales person for the you that gets your pitch right every single time.
If cost is an issue then blog away. Its's just your time and knowledge required.
Design
This is where most web developers are great. They understand how to make all of this look fantastic. Even better bring in a branding consultant too and between strategy, design and brand you can build the perfect website.
I personally like clean designs that are easy to see and understand but as with everything in this blog it depends on your industry and the story you are trying to tell.
It goes without saying that your site has to be responsive and work on a mobile. with over 50% of all internet traffic taking place on a mobile phone your site should be mobile first and not an after thought. Google are now taking this into huge consideration as of mid April 2015 and if your site is not responsive you will see your Google rankings decline.
SEO or search engine optimisation
I am no SEO expert that's for sure but my thoughts are very much around write to for people not search engines.
Google's objective is to work more like people and give better more relevant results. Therefore find out what your customer and prospects are searching for and use that as the title of of a blog and write about. What people are typing into Google and other search engines is questions. If your content and site is relevant Google will find it.
There are far more tactics to improve your rankings. But if you dont want to either understand or pay for SEO then stick with the above and you will do just fine. If ranking first for your keywords is everything to your business consider working with an SEO expert.
I hope you have found this useful and if you feel i have missed something critical please let me know.
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Author- Speaker - Consultant. Passionate about all things digital.