5 Steps to Reach Business Goals with Your Website

Today, a website is necessary for just about any business to succeed. Here’s a quick guide on the five things you must know to build a successful website:

Start With A Purpose

Having a website is key, but building a website for the sake of having one is a recipe for failure. Before you begin building your website, you need to decide what its purpose is. Are you going to use it to extend your brand to your current audience, expand your brand beyond your current audience, drive e-commerce, or a little bit of everything? The business decisions you make will drive the design and content of your website, so carefully choosing your purpose is the very first step in building a successful website.

Remember Your Website Reflects Your Company

Your website is a direction reflection of your business, so you can imagine what a sloppy, nonfunctional website can make your visitors think of you. Here are some things you should focus on as you build your website:

• A sensible URL. If the name of your business isn’t available, keep it short, sweet and easy to remember. Make sure to purchase your own domain name, using a free public hosting site shows visitors you aren’t serious enough to invest in your own website.
• Professional design. Your website doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, but it needs to be clean and intuitive. Sloppy, cookie-cutter design indicates that you weren’t invested enough to hire a designer or take the time to build a proper website.
• Simple functionality. If your website cannot be easily navigated, or has broken functionality, it won’t provide much use to visitors.

Stay Smart About SEO

The most functional website is useless if nobody finds it. Using proper SEO techniques is critical to driving traffic to your website. This includes using targeted keywords, building links with relevant websites, and utilizing media such as infographics and videos. Building a strong social media presence will also help drive traffic to your website. The best option may vary from business to business, but Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are the big three.  

Create Killer Content

One of the best ways to drive people to your website is developing top-notch content. In fact, once it’s fully developed, content marketing’s ROI is 5 to 6 times better than paid search advertising! Some easy ways to make your content better are by making sure it’s relevant, useful, and evergreen (meaning it will stay relevant years from now). To maximize its effectiveness, make sure it’s easily shareable and offers a fresh perspective on the things your customers care about. Tweet This

Ask For What You Want

If you’re trying to drive a specific output, you need to ask your customers for it. If you want a blog post to drive sign-ups or comments, you need to specifically ask readers to do so at the end. You also want to provide visitors incentives to fulfill your call to action. If you’re trying to increase email list subscriptions, for example, consider developing an eBook and offering it for free to subscribers. 

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