Business websites: How to best your competitors & win the website war

By Henry Brown

With millions of websites in the world, when it comes to building and running your own business website, you need to be clued with about what it takes to create a site that has the potential to be hugely successful.

Ask yourself: within five seconds of landing on your website, can people instantly see what your company offers? Is your website easy to navigate – could users easily find your website’s blog if they wanted to? Can users easily find the pricing structure you offer? What’s your website’s bounce rate – is it low?

If you’re thinking the answer to each of these questions is ‘no’, then you might want to consider how you’ve gone about designing your website. It could be that when it comes to your website’s design, you haven’t taken the process seriously enough or that your website’s optimization has not been done correctly.

The fact is that for a website to succeed, it’s not just about its design or layout, it’s also about the optimization, and a range of other factors too. Your website needs to clearly communicate with your users, sharing with them what you do and who you offer your services too. It’s not just about creating the image that your business is a great company; it’s also about addressing your users’ core concerns.

Bearing all that in mind, the question is: what can you do to ensure that your business website stands out for all of the right reasons and is as successful as you always hoped it would be?

[amazon_link asins=’B0748JFS4P’ template=’ProductAd’ store=’succeedingi0d-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’4c4d95f1-c316-11e8-9010-4b10993a23b2′]Start with a plan

Don’t just start creating a website with no plan in place, as that is when things tend to end up in a mess. Instead, take the time to sit down and plan what you want your website to have and to be like. Think things through instead of simply rushing the process. Think about the needs of your visitors before you start mapping out your website, and create a plan that fits around that.

Think about what information they will need, what pages they will want to see, and what deals they might convert on. By better understanding your customers you can build a website that is the perfect fit for them and their needs. It’s essential that you take knowing what your customers want seriously, as when it comes to designing a website that is a good fit for their needs and making sales, you need to know this information.

Remove these unnecessary things

While there are certain things that your website needs to function, there are also other things that your website does not need to function. To ensure that your website is seen as being a professional space, it’s essential that you understand what your website does not need.

Complicated animations or content that is too long can have a negative impact on your website’s success, which is why it’s worthwhile taking the time to ensure that you don’t have these on your website, or if you do, taking the time to remove them from your site.

[amazon_link asins=’B07333G2YG’ template=’ProductAd’ store=’succeedingi0d-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’56e6c0ff-c316-11e8-b786-47aa8c60c5b2′]Include social sharing buttons

It’s all well and good filling your website with highly shareable blog content and videos, but if you are not including social media share buttons on your website, you are making it harder for your users to share your content, which is not what you want.

You want to make it as easy as possible for your users to share your content, because when content is shared it boosts brand awareness and, potentially, traffic to your website.

Use the right images

Not every image will fit with your brand’s vision and values, which is why it’s important to use images that perfectly fit your website and brand. It’s not about choosing the most interesting or shocking image; while you want to make an impact it’s also important to choose images that fit your brand and its values.

Navigation is crucial

When it comes to designing your website, it’s important to ensure to take site navigation seriously, because navigation is what holds your whole site together. If you are going to build a website that is easy to use and navigate, it’s essential to ensure that your sitemap is carefully designed.

A site map shows the core areas users can visit and for this reason is an extremely important aspect of any website design. What you need to ensure is that your website users can easily and quickly find what they’re looking for.

There’s nothing worse than a website with a difficult to use or confusing sitemap because it makes every aspect of the website complex to use. That’s why it’s so essential that when it comes to your website’s design that you take navigation seriously from the start.

[amazon_link asins=’1516937198′ template=’ProductAd’ store=’succeedingi0d-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’660f36a8-c316-11e8-ad10-918f998b30f9′]SEO is essential

SEO is an essential part of ensuring that your website ranks highly in Google. If you are going to build a website that is actually valuable, then you need to take SEO seriously from the get-go. SEO isn’t just for blog posts, it’s also for websites too, which is why you need to make it a priority in order to give your website the best chance of ranking highly in Google and other search engines.

When it comes to SEO, it’s not just about the SEO in the content, such as keyword placement, it’s also about other more sneaky forms of SEO that you may be unaware that you need. For instance, things like title tags and meta tags are essential when it comes to SEO, but very few business owners properly understand the need for these things.

Make mobile optimization a priority

Eighty percent of internet users go online via their smartphones, which means that when it comes to your website, it’s essential that it’s properly optimized for both computer and smart device use. When a website isn’t optimized properly for smart device use, it can cause all kinds of issues, from the site not loading to the design looking strange and the sitemap not working.

Don’t allow your website to lag on mobile optimization, instead take the time to ensure that your website is properly designed to be mobile-friendly.

Don’t stop testing

If you want to ensure that your website is the best that it can be, it’s essential that you never stop testing. When it comes to website design, you can never be sure that everything is running effectively, unless you continue to test it correctly and constantly.

The best way to test your website’s pages is using A/B testing tools to do so. If you’re not able to do this yourself – or any aspect of your website’s design for that matter – it makes sense to outsource the task to someone who does know what they’re doing and can deal with this task for you in a highly effective and organized way.

[amazon_link asins=’1599186217′ template=’ProductAd’ store=’succeedingi0d-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’79ecaa39-c316-11e8-bea7-1fd7336f9dde’]Create new and unique offers

As a business, you will always be in competition with another business, which is why it’s essential that you think outside of the box when it comes to your website’s design and what you use your website for. The fact is that if you are going to encourage new customers to view your website and stay on it long enough to see what you have on offer, it’s essential to create new and unique offers for your customers to take advantage of.

With thousands if not millions of offers on the internet at any one time, it is becoming increasingly difficult to break through the ‘noise’ of the other competitors. You need to create unique and interesting offers that no one else is giving. You need to get creative with what you offer, to ensure that you are able to compete with your competitors and keep your customers happy.

There you have it, everything that you need to know about how you can ensure that your website is the best that it can be and that you are keeping your customers happy at the same time. There’s a lot that goes into running a successful business website and it’s important to understand that, which is why it’s essential that you implement the tips and suggestions above. If your venture is going to stand the test of time in the modern world, having a highly successful website is a crucial tool and one that shouldn’t be taken for granted.

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Henry Brown is an online marketing executive. When he isn’t talking shop he’s roaming the streets of London, uncovering the extra-ordinary in the ordinary.

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