The majority of your prospective customers and clients will visit your website before contacting your business. In addition, 38.5% of website visitors form their opinion of a business based on their first experience with a website.
This means your website can either be a huge help or massive embarassment for your business’ marketing, branding, and operations.
The problem is, even the simplest websites have a LOT of parts and pieces. So, we’ve put together a list of everything your business’ website needs to be succesful.
38.5% of website visitors form their opinion of a business based on their first experience with a website.
Table of Contents
- Header
- Navigation
- Important Information
- Calls to Action
- Compelling Images
- Reviews or Testimonials
- Footer
- Important Pages
- Mobile Friendly
- SEO
A – Header
The header appears on every page and should be clean. Be sure to include important information you want visitors to access easily like:
- Your business name and logo
- Quick contact information (like phone and email)
- Usually, your site navigation
- Search bar (depending on your website)
B – Navigation
A simple and intuitive menu bar that lets visitors get to the main pages of your website.
See recommended list of pages below.
C – Important Information
Put the best and most important information about your business and products or services first.
A good rule of thumb is that someone should be able to tell what your business is and what they do within the first 5 seconds of being on the Home page.
A great way to accomplish this is with a Hero Section, i.e., a section with a large image, main title, supporting text, and a Call To Action button (see image above).
D – Calls to Action
These are basically the actions you want your visitors to do. Make your buttons stand out from the page.
- Buy Now
- Contct Us
- Sign Up
E – Compelling Images
High-quality images can boost engagement, sell products, and improve SEO.
If your photos look pixelated, you need to increase the image quality.
Avoid stock images and use your own if possible.
F – Reviews or Testimonials
People will trust other customers opinion of your business over your own. Positive reviews can increase sales, get you clients, and build trust.
G – Footer
Your footer should also appear on every page, at the end.
Should contain:
- Contact information
- Quick navigation links
- Links to social media pages
- Newsletter signup
- Copyright and legal information
Important Pages
Every business is different, so you may need more pages than the ones listed here.
That being said, your website should contain these pages unless you have a one-pager.
- Home
- About Us
- Products and/or Services
- Contact Us
- Blog (optional)
Mobile Optimized
With more than 60% of website traffic coming from mobile devices, having a mobile optimized website is a necessity.
Mobile optimized means that your website adjusts to different screen sizes (like a phone or tablet).
Google even takes this into account when ranking your website above others in search results.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Search Engine Optimization is the practice of optimizing a website and its content to improve its visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).
This is important because it gets your website more and higher quality visitors for organically (AKA FREE) from people searching on Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
SEO is accomplished by optimizing the website’s content, structure, and HTML code, as well as by building high-quality backlinks from other websites.
SEO can include both on-page and off-page optimization techniques, and it involves ongoing analysis, testing, and refinement to ensure that the website is optimized for the most effective keywords.