Is your website a bit tired and worn? Is it time for a facelift for your website? I know you’ve been dreading the day when you need to update it. But, shame on you, you should be updating the content regularly. It may be time now to update not only the content, but the functionality, and the navigation, as well. Have you already integrated social media and inbound marketing features into your website? If not, now may be the time to do it. After all, you do want people to find you when they search for your products or services online, don’t you? Here are a few tips that may help you create a more effective website.
Step No. 1: Understand the importance of your website. It is NOT just an electronic brochure. Maybe that worked years ago, but today you need to draw visitors to your website and ensure that search engines find you. Don’t update your website just because you are tired of it or your CEO wants it updated or it’s been over a year since you last redesigned it. Set a strategy for your new website such as being found by more prospects or converting prospects into leads and then to customers. Rebranding is also a good reason to update your website.
Step No. 2: Before you even begin the new redesign, set some goals for your business. Focus on the objectives you want to achieve with the new website. Don’t worry so much about the color and the graphic look and feel at this point but more on how you want to be perceived by your customers.
Step No. 3: Inventory your content and other assets that you currently have on your existing website. Can you keep the majority of the content? What content is missing at this point? Should you add an e-commerce feature so that your customers can easily order your products? Review the photos and other images you have available. Are some of the photos outdated? How about planning a photo shoot or pulling more recent photos out of the photo data base.
Step No. 4: After you’ve clearly defined your goals and objectives and have taken an inventory of your content and assets, now it’s time to start the actual graphic interface and web design. Hopefully, you have hired a fabulous web designer who not only has the gift for great design but also understands how to optimize your website for search engines. Do they understand the significance of keywords and header tags, for example. A great design is beautiful to look at but if your customers still can’t find you when they search for your products and services, then you have wasted your precious marketing budget. So make sure your web designer not only has a good grasp of good design but also internet marketing.
Step No. 5: Don’t just build the new website and forget it. Your new website should be a dynamic part of your overall marketing strategy and should be updated regularly. So, make sure you have a strategy for updating the content regularly. Incorporating a blog into your website design, for example, is a great way to keep your content current and to address the topics in which your customers are most interested. Creating more content begets more pages on your website which begets better ranking on search engines. But, don’t just put lots of junk on your website. Make sure it is meaningful to your visitors.
Step No. 6: Now that you’ve designed a beautiful website, it is easy to navigate and you add new content frequently, the next step is to convert those visitors to leads and then to customers over time. So, also add a conversion strategy to your website design. Landing pages are an excellent way to draw people to your site and to capture leads with a sign-up form. So, think about offering white papers, presentations, webinars, etc. that your visitors are interested in. This will also show your expertise on the specific topics.
Step No. 7: Make sure your website is easy to update. If you have to constantly go back to your web designer to make simple updates, then the entire website update wasn’t worth it. Your web designer should be able to make it easy for you to make the updates yourself. There are several open source software packages that I know some of the website designers I work with use and it is to easy to create landing pages, update your blog, or add additional pages and content to your website.
Basic items your website should include: Always include a blog, RSS, landing pages, SEO, and a tracking function on your website. None of these features are expensive and you’ll need them to convert leads to customers. Remember that a business website is a tool just like all of the other marketing tools you have available to your company. So, leave the awards to the graphic designers. Your goal is not to win awards; it is to generate leads and convert those leads to sales.
