When building or overhauling your website, it’s easy to get caught up in your overall objective – converting prospects into customers. However, that approach alone can easily get you off track. From your brand and core messaging to the site layout, it’s important to keep all your efforts focused on solving your targeted audience’s problems. That means strategically developing content, creating a user-friendly site and designing a brand around the goal of addressing those problems – and solving them. That strategy also requires that you develop an SEO plan that enables people to find your site … and eventually convert.
So how do you design your website to solve problems first and convert prospects later? There are two big factors: the content you provide and the way that content is organized.
Content that converts
Your content should clearly convey your brand’s mission. The essence of a brand is that it exists to solve problems. A website should be designed to communicate the ways your brand can solve those problems – and why your brand solves those problems better than your competitors. Likewise, your brand needs to stand out and fit your business. Make your brand engaging and interesting for the customers you want to target. Your brand will not appeal to everyone – and that’s OK. If your brand tries to target everyone, chances are, no one will listen. If a customer agrees with your brand message, he will convert. Congratulations, you have a successful message.
Displaying and organizing your content
While having great content is important, how that content is displayed is just as important. One of the biggest components to having a website that will convert customers is to make sure the basic design is successful. If your design isn’t successful, your customers may not even be interested in reading your content. Then they’ll never know why your brand is special. Ideally, your site should be easy to navigate. A key factor in achieving this is making sure that your content is well categorized and easy for users to find. It doesn’t matter how great your content is if your customers are frustrated in their efforts to find it on your site. Have numerous users test your site before launching it. Gather feedback on how well they are able to navigate it and implement any adjustments, if necessary.
Creating a successful website isn’t difficult to figure out. You can select from among various templates offered by web hosting services. You also can browse your favorite sites to see how they compare to your business website. One of the biggest pitfalls of websites is failing to take a simple approach. Some designs can be so complex that it may be difficult for users to read it. For example, cursive font can be attractive but difficult to read. Don’t trust your instincts since you may have a biased opinion in that you already know what it should say. Try to avoid brightly colored fonts for the same reason.
Another key to developing a user-friendly design is avoiding dated images, color schemes and designs. These days, simple color schemes, designs and images dominate the web design landscape. Have a professional web designer look over your plans or help you create a design that not only fits your brand but highlights your business as one that is forward thinking. If your site looks old, potential customers might not trust it to provide the latest information and solutions.
Added factors
Your site should also have a responsive web design. This means that the page can be easily viewed on multiple platforms including cell phones and tablets. Making sure cell phone users can access your site is important because of the increasing use of mobile search for services and products.
Search engines also should be able to easily “read” your website. Keep important text – such as your address and phone number – out of pictures. Search engines can’t read text in a picture form. This will help your web page’s search engine page ranking.
Many factors play into the success of conversion for your website. By thoroughly answering users’ questions with your content, creating a site that is accessible on multiple platforms, following basic SEO rules and creating an attractive website can put you on the road to your goal of converting visitors into loyal customers.
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