Almost every business can benefit from a website, but if your website is missing important elements, it’s not going to fulfill its full potential for you and your business. This is one reason to hire a company like doneWebs to build your site, instead of trying to do it yourself.
Of course, your website needs to have your business name, logo, and accompanying images, but you might be wondering what else to add. Don’t forget these crucial pieces when building your website:
- A call-to-action that encourages visitors to do business with you
What good is a website if it’s not generating leads or customers? Even if you have a great web presence and potential customers are finding you on Google, it doesn’t do you a lot of good if those visitors don’t turn into sales (or donations, or volunteers, or whatever your organization’s goal is).
That’s why it’s important to have buttons and/or links that draw attention to themselves and take visitors to a place where they can engage with you. Even if you’re not taking payments online or selling a physical product, you can still guide users to a “Contact Us” page where they can request a quote, sign up for something, or just start a conversation with you.
These buttons should be hard to miss, and repeated frequently. And don’t be afraid to put one in the top menu of your website, like this:
- Information about your products/services and how your business provides value
There are a lot of different pieces of information you might think to put on your website, and maybe you’re excited to plaster that cool new logo or slick promo video all over the place, but don’t forget the basics.
People who visit your website expect to find out immediately who you are and what you do. Are you a construction business that specializes in concrete? That needs to be front and center on your website. Don’t leave people guessing what you do.
You need to lead off right away with what your business is. Further down the home page and/or on other pages of your site, you can get into a deeper explanation of your company and what you offer. Eventually, you should explain your services, pricing, or other key information related to the purpose of your company or organization.
Lastly, somewhere on your site should be a sales pitch. Why should people choose you? Why should someone do business with you instead of a competitor?
- Where are you, and how can people talk to you?
One of the most frustrating things for a consumer is not being able to get in touch with you when they need to. Making sales and satisfying your existing customers both rely on allowing people to get in touch with you, so don’t forget to include contact information.
At bare minimum, you should include either your phone number or email address, but ideally, you’d have both of those, along with a mailing address, links to your social media pages, your opening hours, and more.
You should also absolutely include the location of your business. If your business doesn’t serve customers in-person, it might be okay to omit the address. But you should at least tell people what city you’re in. And of course, if your business does serve customers at a physical location, you must include that address somewhere.
- Social Media
It’s important for people to be able to find you on social media, for a few reasons:
- Your customers can follow you on social media, which in turn leads to your followers engaging with your content and making it more likely that other people find you
- Being on social media improves the legitimacy of your business
- Sites like Yelp and Facebook have reviews where your website visitors can see what people are saying about your company
- Facebook and Instagram allow people to find more photos of your work, assuming you’ve been updating your social media with images
It doesn’t have to be the first thing people see on your website, but you should include somewhere the links to your social media pages. And if you don’t have a LinkedIn, Yelp, Facebook and Instagram for your business, we’d recommend getting them.
5. Testimonials
You can brag about your business all you want, but nothing instills confidence in potential customers like someone vouching for the work you do. If you have reviews on Facebook, Yelp, Google, or anywhere else, and they say positive things about your business, include it on your website!
People who visit your site should get warm, fuzzy feelings about spending money with you after they read how other people had a positive experience.
Thankfully, doneWebs is here to simplify your life and take care of these things for you. To get started, simply pay a deposit and have a short phone call with your developer, and we’ll take care of the rest! Go to donewebs.com to sign up today.