What would you say is your biggest source of new business? Recommendations from previous customers, repeat customers, word of mouth or something else?
What all of these customers have in common, is that when they consider they may have a need for your service or product, they will Google it. This means your website has the potential to become your top sales tool!
Finding a good website service provider, and a skilled designer is one of the most crucial business decisions you’ll ever make. Here are our top considerations for planning your investment in your site.
The return you want from your website
What is it you want your site to do for you?
Using our Common 10 marketing model, shows the marketing and sales journey of your customer. It also neatly demonstrates how your website has a critical role at every stage.
This journey includes:
- How the prospect first discovers you
- How you nurture them towards making an enquiry
- How they become a customer AND
- How they progress to deliver referrals and repeat custom.
It is important to consider which of these roles your website does well currently and which it could do better moving forward. By doing so, you’ll identify what type of website services you need now.
Website design that gets your business found in the search results
According to GE Capital Retail, 81% of all retail customers conduct online research before buying and there are an estimated 1.5 billion websites. The search algorithms that determine which website shows in the search engine results pages have to work hard. The way your website design is approached, however, can make it much easier for them.
Google and Bing have to be able to reference you for both your brand name and relevant ‘context searches’. Context searches are those where keywords about your business type, services, products and locations are used e.g. “website design Haywards Heath” or “web design West Sussex”.
To appear high up in the search results pages for the more difficult context searches means applying some technical know-how around keyword research and search engine optimisation. These strategic actions need to be part of any website services you invest in if you want to achieve a real impact on your business.
Convert website visitors into enquiries through the best web design
The user experience of your website matters; not just to the potential customers but to the search engines too. They pick up on whether customers enjoy your site, can find what they want from it and if they convert to data capture or not.
Your website needs to be attractive, simple to use and well-structured. It also needs to have great content and a strong value proposition for each visitor.
To do this well means putting yourself in the shoes of your potential customer. You then need to ask yourself some tough questions such as what differentiates you from your competitors or why are you better than them? To act on this, you’ll also have to effectively couple the technical know-how with good website design.
Get website support from someone you want to be working with
By investing in web design services or web support, you should be building your own confidence in marketing. This will then empower you to make better business decisions.
None of this has to be a ‘mystery box’ or a secret to you. Equally, it doesn’t mean you have to learn or do it all yourself unless you really want to do that!
Successful website design and website support services are an investment (the increased business results should more than pay for it). If you know your expertise and time is better spent elsewhere in your business, then make the decision to work with someone else who can do these activities for you.
If you want to see how your website could be improved, or to find out more about a website’s role in marketing, then get in touch with us for a free marketing review.