This digital normality combined with a somewhat shaky road to economic recovery have increased competition levels for all businesses; making quality a key differentiator to gain competitive advantage.
This means websites, ranging from simple brochure websites to marketing campaign websites to multi-channel international e-commerce solutions with integrated supply chains, must achieve the business goals set by the board and add business value.
To realise the desired results, businesses need to consider how well their websites perform against the following seven tactical areas:
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How goal-focused the website is
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The quality of the content
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How easy the website is to use
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How well the website projects your brand identity
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How search engine optimised (SEO) the website is
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Social media channel usage and integration
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Mobile users
1. Focus on website goals
Businesses should ask themselves if their current (or planned) website has clearly defined business goals, if the goals are measurable and are engaging website visitors. Such goals could include simple contact requests, investor enquiries, membership sales, product purchases or more sophisticated user engagement and brand awareness targets.
Modern web analytics tools such as the free and highly effective Google Analytics make it extremely easy to map business goals to website goals. At the simplest level Google Analytics allows business users to understand which website traffic sources and marketing initiatives are delivering the most (or least) value.
And finally, make sure that the call-to-actions that drive goal completion are clearly visible.
2. Content is everything
People love good content and share great content so it is essential that your website content is not simply a product brochure or a list of services – you need to get creative and be generous!
This means content needs to be relevant, useful, interesting and available in different media formats. For example, supplement case studies with video testimonials rather than simple client quotes. Want to illustrate your expertise in a particular industry using statistics and facts? Then create an infographic that uses graphics and visual cues to communicate them.
And be generous by sharing your knowledge and experience. Nothing enhances your reputation more than a treasure trove of expert content on your website – prospects will be attracted, clients will be reassured and your competitors frustrated.
3. Don’t make me think
Make it easy for visitors to navigate the website, locate the information they need and perform the tasks required quickly. If you don’t, then they will leave and visit a competitor site.
There are many techniques used to maximise usability but the fundamentals are based on a judicious use of colours to differentiate calls-to-actions, navigation states and error messages, using tool tips to set user expectations and real time error handling that communicate issues to users as they complete data capture forms.
4. Website branding is not just a logo
Your brand is unique and your website needs to reflect that!
Creating a memorable online brand identity is the combination of design elements - ranging from logos, fonts, colour palettes and photographic styles, with content written in a consistent style and tone of voice that is easily recognisable.
Website branding needs to be harmonised with all signage, brochures, letterheads and social media channels.
5. Search engines are here to stay
More than 85% of prospective customers use the internet to find what they are looking for and 70% click a search result within the first page of results; making a good search engine ranking is essential.
It is important to view Google listings as advertisements so all of your pages need unique page titles with unique descriptions that reinforce the page title.
Again the importance of content cannot be understated. Ensuring that your content is regularly updated encourages indexing; making it interesting encourages consumption, others to link to you and share your content across social media channels – all key factors that influence positive search engine rankings.
6. Social media communication keeps growing
Love it or loathe it, social media is not only here to stay but will be increasingly fundamental to all marketing and communications. Businesses need to be active in social media, push and pull content to/from social media channels and encourage user generated content.
This may sound challenging and time consuming, but where better to connect with your target audiences than the social media channels that they frequent?
To make your social media activities successful it is important to identify the channels used by your target audiences.
For B2B companies, this tends to be Twitter and LinkedIn whereas for B2C companies this is often Facebook. Then start slowly, mastering one channel at a time before adding other social channels. Make sure that you integrate your active social media channels on your website with feeds that display your latest tweets or Facebook updates with prominent call-to-actions for your visitors to follow you on social media.
And finally remember - you're human - communicate like one and do not sell, sell, sell!
7. Mobile is expected
The mobile internet is set to overtake fixed internet access by 2014 so it is important to start planning what to do about mobile now, especially if more than 20% of your target audiences are using mobile devices to access your website.
For businesses embarking upon new website builds – make sure that you have your website designed responsively; this ensures that the website renders optimally across mobile, tablet and desktop using a single set of content. For those with existing websites – consider creating a separate mobile site with a reduced set of content that focuses the user to achieve specific goals such as viewing case studies or making a telephone call.
Original source: This post was originally published in the July 2013 of In Business Magazine in the Oxford Times.
