As a business, your business website is essentially the very small slice of virtual real estate in your business. What you do with this real estate is totally up to you. You can either benefit from it – by strengthening your brand image and boosting sales – or you can waste it.
Although no honest business owner intentionally makes the last one, many still come short, nonetheless. You do not want to fall into this category.
4 Tasks That Your Professional Web Site Should Achieve
Businesses want different things on their websites, but no matter what your business area, there are certain tasks that your business website should always accomplish. Let's examine them in more detail:
1. Tell a story
There are many places where your brand can interact with online customers. There is social media, industry blogs, advertising space, press releases, YouTube and dozens of other platforms. But the difference between your website and all of these is that you own your website. Nobody can tell you what to post, delete your content or change your words. It's a tireless spokesperson for your brand. Make sure to use it to tell your story!
Brand storytelling happens in many ways, but it's worth looking at an example. The Mid-Atlantic Door Group, Inc. is a perfect illustration. As you will see on pages like this, their branding is to develop a consistent narrative about where the company has been and where it is going. They are one of the leading distributors of overhead doors since 1973 and use this rich history as a selling point.
Your story might include your story, or it could be more forward-looking. It can focus on the supply chain through which your products travel or what happens after the sale. The goal is not to follow a narrative formula, but rather to identify your history of and share it clearly with visitors to your website.
2. Provide contact information
One of the main reasons people visit a website is to find contact information and other important details regarding the brand. At the very least, you must ensure that your website includes the following:
- Address of the physical address (if any)
- A map to show where your business is (if any)
- Hours of business or store
- A telephone number and an e-mail address
- A basic description of what your company does
There are obviously different ways to list this information, and you do not need to plaster it all over the site, but to make it easy to find.
3. Collect information about the prospect
You could hope to close sales with your website, but that's not the only goal. Sometimes it takes several visits for a prospect to convert. In the meantime, you need to collect lead information via a lead capture form. A simple registration form, such as the one found on this Wrike page, will suffice.
4. Overcoming friction
Your website must be able to overcome friction and provide a simple and rational user experience to visitors. Since bad browsing is the number one reason why users abandon websites, it's a good idea to start with a user-friendly navigation.
"Whether your navigation menu unfolds at the top of your site or in a sidebar, it should be easy to locate for site visitors and include logical categories that make it easy for users to find the information they need. they are looking for." strategist Chris Pautsch writes
In addition to navigation, you will want to increase the page loading speed and limit distractions.
What does your website do?
Is your business website living up to its potential? If you are honest with yourself, the answer is probably no. You may pay a lot of attention to your website, but that does not mean that you focus on the right things. By reallocating your time and energy to the tasks outlined in this article, you can accomplish more than you ever thought possible.
Reissued with permission. Original here.
Image via Due.com