6 Key Components of Web Sites that Drive Traffic and Conversions

A website is a must for businesses in today’s online world. It goes beyond simply providing credibility and legitimacy (although, to that point, some insurance companies will not even issue business insurance without one!) but your website can be a lot more than a business card or brochure. Done right, your website can, and should, grow your business.

Include these 6 components as you build your new site or tweak your current one.

1. Goal Oriented - Design your websites with your online goals in the forefront of your mind.

• What do you want people to do when they reach your site?
• What will your calls-to-action (CTA) be on each page? CTA’s are the difference between visitors and leads, and each page should have one.
• Define your online goals. Goals vary by business but a few examples are:

- Brand awareness

- Lead generation

- Direct online sales

- Attract employees / Show company culture

- Access systems and software

- Customer/member communications and support

- Lobbying and grassroots efforts

- Public awareness

2. Intuitive – Design your site so that it naturally leads your target audience through a process on the site that accomplishes the goals you have defined.

• Who is your target audience? Don’t limit yourself to age, gender, and employment status.
• Go beyond and think of “what makes my target audience unique?” Is it their education level, hobbies, values?
• Try to understand their motivations, desires, how they think and act.
• Are my products and/or services a necessity, nice to have, or a special treat??

3. Organized – Information Architecture (IA) includes the pages, sections and functionality of your website. Defining your business goals and target audience(s) makes constructing your IA much easier.

Often the most visited pages on a company website are:

• Homepage
• About Us or Services
• Contact page

Your website will evolve over time. Plan for that. Check your analytics often and adjust accordingly. The more frequently you update your website, the more likely it is to appear in search engines.

4. Useful – A great website has useful, interesting, and searched for content. Content consists of text, images, and videos. What content is useful to your target audience and what content supports your business goals? Some things to keep in mind as you develop your content:

• Lead with most important info. If a goal of your site is for people to call you, keep the phone number prominent. If texting is ok, let them know with a CTA that states "Call or Text"
• Include keywords - naturally. No keyword stuffing!
• Use visual elements. We live in a visual world. Consider infographics and other images to communicate your message. Make sure to add ALT Text to your images so that visually impaired users to your site will be able to “read” the images. This also helps search engines understand your content.
• Tell your story. Storytelling is an effective way to communicate and connect with your audience. Consider a video on:

- A story of how your business started

- Community outreach your company participates in and is passionate about

5. Functionality – What do you want your website to do? Some common functionality includes:

• A site search
• Contact us forms
• E-Commerce

Here again, the work you did to define your audience and identify online goals will pay off. If growing your social media following is one of your goals, you will want functionality that aligns with that goal such as a social feed and/or easy social share buttons. Do you keep a well-written blog that you’d like people to share, or do you want to recommend additional, relevant blog posts? There are multiple ways to encourage the behavior you desire and building that functionality in is key to a website that works for you.

6.?Search Friendly – When you take the time, effort, and expense to design and build a website (or have it done for you) you want to make sure it can be found by your target audience. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) increases the visibility of your website on search engines. This merits its own article, as Google (the largest search engine) uses more than 200 signals in its algorithm to identify the most relevant results to show when a user searches the internet. Some of the signals include:

• Fresh and useful content
• Links to other sites and from other sites
• Page titles and descriptions
• ALT image text
• Page load speed
• Responsive design (mobile friendly)
• Information Architecture
• Much more!

A well-done website will grow your business. Working with the team of professionals at Ironistic gives you access to experts in each of the components outlined above. Our designers, developers, SEO and marketing team are available to assist you in building a website that works for your business.

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Janet Waring?is a Business and Marketing Strategist with over 25 years of experience.