Build an amazing website by following these simple tips from BMG Marketing, a leading Web Design Agency in Cape Town, South Africa.
“Why do you need a site?” not “What do you want on it?”
Clients look at us and say it must bring in leads or help me sell my products, but without clear planning, structure and investment in proper positioning, this will likely never happen.
Our team at BMG Marketing have put together a list of easy to follow steps that outline the Do’s and Don’ts of building a functioning website. If you follow these tips you are sure to be on a good track to achieving your desired goal of having a functioning, well positioned website.
Do’s
Tip 1: Make sure to set smart achievable goals
Your goals need to be measurable. Usually you will want to have your website achieve the following.
- Increase conversion rates.
- Increase sales.
- Generate more leads.
- Reduce overhead.
- Improve brand awareness.
Tip 2: Do yourself a favour and research SEO Strategy
Tip 3: There are great open source tools out there.
Tip 4: Think about your mobile strategy simultaneously.
Tip 5: Borrow ideas from your competitors.
Tip 6: Develop your own content.
Tip 7: Write content with calls to action in mind.
Tip 8: Always answer the question “why?”
Tip 9: Trust your Web designer.
Dont’s
At all costs avoid doing the following:
Tip 1: Trying to build your own website.
Unless you seriously know what you are doing, I would always suggest you get a professional web designer to help you get started. You would not work on your car unless you know something about motor mechanics, the same goes for your website, your website is often where your customers’ first experience your brand. If it looks homemade, they’re going to make assumptions about your business that you want to avoid.
Tip 2: Making site visitors think too much.
When visitors come to your website, they typically already know what they want out of it. Try this little experiment, Do a three-second test: If within three seconds a visitor can’t figure out what to do next, go back to the drawing board and start again.
Tip 3: Simply expecting visitors.
You need to realise that simply building a website does not come with a guarantee that visitors will start arriving. You need to work very hard to draw people to your website through targeted marketing campaigns and SEO tactics.
Tip 4: Don’t spend all your money.
Set a budget for your website and at all costs do not max out your entire budget just on the website. These days you can get well designed open source websites for a couple thousand rand. If the website is build right, you can should always be able to make improvements as your business grows. It’s far more important initially to have some money left over for a marketing budget so you can actually make a return on your investment.
Tip 5: Don’t add a blog unless you plan to write.
Do not get us wrong, a blog is an awesome way to build organic rankings and website trust authority. Google loves fresh content and blogs are a great way to engage with your visitors. But seriously consider adding one if you are not going to either outsource your blog posts to a ghost content developer or you are going to do it yourself. If you add a blog and simply ignore it, visitors to your site might get the impression that you are either out of business or that your company is not dynamic and nothing is really happening that’s news worthy.
Tip 6 : Don’t simply add Twitter and Facebook buttons.
Just like a blog, social media is everywhere and if used properly it can really help grow your brand online. But if you just put social media buttons on your website and ignore them like a blog, the when a potential client clicks through to your social pages and sees hardly any followers, they may lose trust in you. First build up your social presence, then commit to posting and engaging your fans on a regular basis, and only then promote them on your website. Also keep in mind that some businesses simply don’t belong on Twitter or Facebook.
Tip 7: Do not try to please everyone.
We see this often, especially when you have multiple stakeholders all adding their two cents to the website. Your website will be a mess if you try to accommodate every type of visitor who might come along. Figure out who is likely to be your most frequent users and focus on creating the best experience for them.
Tip 8: Don’t simply add testimonials.
Once again, like social media and blogs, a testimonial is going to help build trust among your site visitors, however we too often come across testimonials that sound fake. “’They are great!’ says John Smith” just doesn’t make me feel reassured. One of the best ways to tackle this is to make a note that we are happy to provide contactable client references to qualified leads. This is something that a genuine client would respect and if they want to know more, they can engage through one of your “calls to action” and once qualified you can release a reference. It also shows you care about your clients by not freely advertising their details.
Tip 9: Do not use Flash.
Try at all costs to avoid using Flash. Adobe just announced that it will no longer support Flash on mobile devices and set-top-boxes. The last thing you want is for a potential customer to be unable to open your site.
Tip 10: Don’t expect a great website overnight.
These days you can build a awesome website quickly, but getting it positioned does take time. SEO is key part of any website’s success. Making sure you allocate enough time and resources to achieve it is key to your websites success.
Conclusion:
We hope you enjoyed this articles, we really feel strongly that proper planning and design can save both the developer and the client a lot of headaches down the line. If you would like to know more about BMG Marketing and how we could maybe help your website thrive, please do not hesitate to contact us today!
BMG Marketing is a leading web design agency in Cape Town, South Africa.