Do you have an effective website for your business?

89% of customers begin their purchase with an internet search. It’s never been more vital for your business to have an effective website.

We’ve identified five key steps that will help you to build a site that’s effective, easy to use and creates the best level of engagement with your target audience.

Step 1: Decide on your target audience and specialisms

Your website should be written and designed to appeal to your ideal customers and define why your business is the right choice for them.

Step 2: What are the challenges you solve or value you add for your customers

Ensure your site clearly defines the key value you add for your customers. Your website is also a place to share helpful, practical or entertaining content in the form of blogs, video and news that is relevant to them.

Step 3: Make your design and messaging really simple

There’s huge value in working with a website designer to help turn your notes into a easy-to-navigate layout.

• Keep it simple! – Use concise copy so viewers can engage with the content and find the pages or advice that they need
• Be clear what you do - On your homepage, tell people why they should choose you
• Make your site responsive and mobile friendly – it must automatically resize and reformat when viewed on a mobile device

Step 4: Ensure your site delivers the best user experience

What do you want them to do? From the moment viewers land on your home page, or click through to a blog post, you want to push them to your chosen end point – whether that’s contact you, register or add to basket.

• Have a simple menu – ensure your site is straightforward and easy to navigate with key areas in your top menu and simple architecture
• Put your key message ‘above the fold’ – so that the first thing your visitor sees is your your unique selling point
• Be strategic with calls-to-action – what do you want them to do? If you want viewers to contact you, put this ‘Contact us’ button at both the top and bottom of the page.

Step 5: Keep evolving: your website is never finished

Once your site is live, you must continue to update it, post fresh content and review how well your pages are performing.

• Use analytics to measure site performance – track and review the performance and ROI of your online content
• Display customer feedback and authority ratings – demonstrate your trustworthiness by including testimonial quotes from your valued customer and independent customer ratings sites