Building an efficient and successful website is more involved than it may seem. While it’s not difficult to set in motion, the process does require time, patience, and intentional planning to ensure the website aligns with your company’s goals.
It used to be that a brand’s website served more as a digital business card, providing basic information that clients, customers, and leads needed to get in touch. However, in today’s competitive landscape, websites are so much more than that.
The modern website serves as a tool to usher consumers through the sales funnel, establish brands as an authority, and foster lasting relationships to develop customer loyalty. In other words, the most successful websites are engaging and create a memorable experience for the user.
In today’s digital era, your website is a crucial part of your brand’s identity. It should leave a lasting impression that keeps your audience coming back for more. Here are the 10 key elements you need to include in your website to achieve this.
1. Your Company’s Story and Value Proposition
When users visit your website, you only have a few seconds to make a lasting impression that lets them know who you are and what you do best. That’s why including a Value Proposition is so important — it’s a quick and concise way to show people what value you bring to the table or what you have to offer.
For example, “We are THE company for X.” It’s brief, memorable, and impactful, and sets you up as an authority in your industry.
Additionally, your website is also the time to let your company’s story shine. Your origin story is part of your brand identity and it helps drive value by making what you do personal — like a mission statement. It helps people connect more with your brand.
The Value Proposition and the origin story/mission statement are both key to creating a high-converting website.
2. Regularly Updated, Client-Focused Content
Compelling, client-focused content is the cornerstone of a successful website. Your clients are coming to you because they have a problem they need to solve. They need your expertise.
As such, your website should focus on solving those problems or pain points by delivering content that gives them what they need. You must meet your clients where they are by creating informative, engaging, varied, and dynamic content.
A significant part of this isn’t just about creating content that meets your clients’ needs, but also consistently updating your content. You want to keep things fresh and relevant to ensure your clients are engaged.
It’s important to show them that you are making an active effort to regularly deliver interesting and useful information to help them solve their problems.
3. An Inbound Selling Strategy
Adding on to the previous point, inbound selling is a tactic that aims to solve a customer’s pain points instead of focusing on simply making a sale.
Today’s consumers are more discerning and they don’t like when a website feels like a sales pitch. Instead, they want to feel like you are there to help them solve their problems. This means creating a website that ensures you are perceived as the utmost authority within your line of work.
In other words, you want to show your clients that not only can you help them, but you are the best company for the job. To do this, you must spend time researching what your customers want and giving them what they want to see.
An inbound selling strategy is also about boosting your social media reach, as this is one of the best ways to share and spread awareness of your deep, intrinsic knowledge and expertise in your line of work.
4. CTAs and a Focus on Conversion
To achieve conversions, you not only need to create stellar content for every part of the sales cycle when building a website but also develop thoughtfully placed CTAs and drivers for clients to take action.
CTAs are a vital part of nurturing clients through the sales cycle and engaging them at every step along the buying journey. Think of it like a guide. CTAs are there to guide or nudge website visitors in the right direction — toward taking a desired action, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or providing their contact information so your sales team can reach out and chat.
A well-crafted CTA can significantly boost your conversion rates, playing a key role in client experience, sales, and the overall success of the website. They should be clear and concise, using direct language and brevity to get to the point quickly.
CTAs should also be highly visible and stand out from the rest of your content. Finally, they should create a sense of urgency and highlight value by using phrases and words like “Limited Offer,” “Only a Few Left,” or “Free Trial.”
5. Fast, Simple Contact Forms
Contact forms are a great way to connect leads with the information they need wherever they are in the sales funnel. That said, 81 percent of people abandon a form after they’ve already started filling it out — and complex forms like those with dropdown boxes have the highest abandonment rates.
On the other hand, those online forms with fewer questions perform far better. Thus, when using contact forms as a part of your CTAs or on any part of your website, they should be easy and fast to fill out. Having three fields or less to complete can cut abandonment rates considerably.
This is a key part of sales enablement as it removes friction from the process of engaging with your company.
6. Inspiring Case Studies
13 percent of marketers report that case studies are a significant component of their content strategy. Why?
Case studies are invaluable assets that serve as proof of how well your company meets your clients’ needs. It’s proof that what you are offering works and is valuable, which drives clients to choose your brand. It assures them they are investing in the right choice.
You can create a dedicated page or section for case studies on your website, you can feature them in blog posts, or you can offer them in a downloadable PDF after a lead completes a contact form. They are also great for email campaigns to help nurture clients and move them along the sales funnel.
7. Easy, Intuitive Navigation
A significant part of the online user experience often comes down to how well your visitors can navigate your website. If your website isn’t user-friendly, it can put people off and negatively impact your conversion rates.
On the other hand, an easy-to-follow site structure with intuitive navigation will make it easier for your visitors to find what they are looking for, which means they will be more likely to stick around and take action.
Focus on keeping things simple and consistent, with visual cues and clear menu labels to help visitors navigate with ease. Hierarchy and sub-menus are also important to help break sections and pages down into well-organized and logical categories.
Adding a search feature is also a great way to help people find what they are looking for without forcing them to dig through all of your online content. A mobile-friendly, responsive design is also important for those who want to access your website on the go.
8. Appealing Images
The visual elements on your website are like the cherry on top of your branding frosting. While content is king, as they say, visuals can leave a more lasting and powerful impression. This is likely because we process images faster than we do text.
The images and graphics you choose to add will help consumers connect with your brand and set the tone for what they can expect when they interact with you. Like your mission statement, visuals help tell the story of who you are, only they do it by “showing” instead of “telling,” which is an important part of creating engaging content.
A single image can evoke powerful emotions and help establish a mood or a feeling. As such, they’re a crucial part of your sales strategy.
9. Good “Bones”
For any modern website to be successful, it needs to have good “bones.” In other words, it needs to lay the right foundation that ensures it’s discoverable, targeted to your ideal audience, and specific to who you are and what you have to offer.The good bones of a website include:
- A well-thought-out SEO strategy using appropriate keywords
- Engaging content based on user personas
- Good UI and UX to ensure a quality customer experience
- Website accessibility, such as alt-text, easy-to-read fonts, and fast loading times
- Live chat options for support
- Functional linking to internal pages
- A simple and user-friendly eCommerce store
10. A Modern, Appealing Design
You put a lot of effort into the work that you do to stay at the forefront of your industry. So why not let your website design be a reflection of that?
A company’s website plays a significant role in how customers view a brand. You don’t want people to get the wrong idea of your company because you failed to create a quality website.
Today’s consumers want websites that are informative with a simple, streamlined design. They also want websites that are reactive and mobile-friendly to meet the needs of their fast-paced lives.
Keeping up with these demands shows customers that you are ahead of the game and are capable of delivering quality experiences, services, and products. Use your website to speak to who you are, what you do best, and how you are driving innovation.
The Future of Website Marketing
At Digital Marketing Direction, we aim to help companies to grow their brands with innovative marketing solutions. Using data-driven and AI-powered strategies, we empower businesses across industries to make better decisions that drive measurable results.
Let us help you take your website to the next level.
Posted by Jackie Connors
Jackie Connors is the Founder & CEO of Digital Marketing Direction, a HubSpot Solutions Partner agency based in Texas. She provides inbound training, consulting, and content marketing services to mid-market companies.