It’s bizarre to think that it wasn’t really all that long ago when the idea of having a website for your business was considered something of a luxury. It seemed as though the only businesses that had any real need for a website were incredibly large companies and those who specifically did their business online. However, thanks to the increased availability of internet enabled devices and high-speed internet, doing your business online is now more of an expectation than anything else. This means that a business without a website is now the exception. Not only that but not having a website sets your business up almost immediately to be unable to function in the modern era. You’re going to find yourself falling behind the competition as you struggle to reach customers. However, just because your business has a website doesn’t mean that you’re automatically guaranteed success. The key is to make your website work for you, not the other way around. With that in mind, here are some simple things that you need to focus on in order to get the most out of your business’s website.
Functionality
Though it might not be the thing that many business owners consider when they first imagine their website, it’s vital that before anything else, your website is actually functional. When you’re planning your website you might begin by thinking about the design, and that is something that we will come to in a moment, but if customers can’t actually navigate your website then it’s as good as useless. There is a whole host of different factors that can influence your website’s ability to function properly. For one thing, you need to think about whether or not the servers that your website is running on can actually stand up to the sheer amount of traffic that you could potentially end up with. After all, there’s no sense having a website that is only prepared to deal with a hundred or so hits per day when your business is going to become popular enough that tens of thousands of people will be visiting your website, causing it to crash. Making sure that you’re working with the best possible service providers for your business is incredibly important, and you should always be considerate of how much traffic you expect your website to get.
Traffic
Speaking of traffic, there’s no sense whatsoever in having an incredibly well-made website if no one is actually able to find it. One of the major reasons that more and more businesses are moving online every day is because that’s where customers are going to find them. Where they might once have used something like the phone book in order to find a business that they needed, customers will no go straight to Google. If you’re not making sure that your business is right at the top of the results when a customer searches for your business, then you’re never going to make the most of your website, no matter how good it is. There are a few different ways to do this. One is through Google Adwords. These are search results that appear above natural search results, giving them a great deal of visibility. That might sound incredibly simple but it can actually be rather complex, and it’s worth connecting with a company who can handle Adwords campaign management for you. The other way in which you can make sure that your business is always right at the top of Google’s results page is through well-integrated SEO. SEO is one of those things that many businesses are aware of but aren’t sure how to properly implement. Luckily there is a huge amount of information online about it that can help you raise your business’s ranking and get the kinds of traffic that you really need.
Elegant Design
This might sound a little bit harsh, but the truth is that the majority of customers are incredibly shallow people. This is not necessarily a bad thing of course. After all, in the modern era customers are bombarded with so many different products and businesses that being able to distinguish between them can be incredibly difficult and overwhelming. Because of this it only makes sense that they would begin to judge businesses based on the most surface level elements. This means that, regardless of how amazing your product might be, if you have an amateurishly designed website that looks like something from the late 90s, customers are going to assume that this reflects badly on your business as a whole. There are entire blogs dedicated to bad web design so you can see what not to do but it’s often worth connecting directly with web designers who can help you avoid falling into some of the more common web design traps.
Interconnectedness
There was a time when your website was the be all and end all of your online presence. After all, there wasn’t really anywhere else for you to exist online outside of it. However, that has all changed now. Suddenly your business is not only expected to have a fully functioning website but a Facebook page, a Twitter accounts, a youtube channel, and more! This can be a little overwhelming, but it means that you’re always able to connect with different customers, no matter what. However, the last thing you want is for all of these things to be totally separate. Make sure that your website features clear, obvious links to all of your social media accounts as well as any other sites that it might be connected with in any way. The same goes in the opposite direction as well. Make sure that customers can easily find your website through your various social media accounts and pages. In the modern era, customers simply don’t have the patience to go searching for something. You need to put it right in front of their faces.
Features
Of course, with all of the different pages, profiles, and accounts that your business has on different sites, it begs one crucial question: why should customers go to your website at all? If you want to make your website a valuable part of your online presence the modern era, then it has to have features that exist there and nowhere else. The most obvious of these in an online store. Sure, customers can find out about your products through your social media pages but to buy them they need to go right to the source: your website. Similarly, it’s a good idea to have a blog attached to your website. For the most part, customers aren’t that interested in businesses. However, what they are interested in is people. If you can use the blog on your website as a space for the human interest side of your business, then you’re not only going to be able to engage your customers more effectively, but you’ll also have given them a reason to keep coming back to your website again and again.
It’s incredibly important to remember that the best websites involve a solid balance between all of these different features. A highly functional website that is lacking in any sort of visual flair is going to cause customers to lose interest very quickly in the same way that a flashy website with no interesting features is going to be as good as useless. Make sure that you’re thinking carefully about the balance between the different elements of your website in order to hit that sweet spot where it becomes a truly integral part of your business.