Your website should keep your prospective clients on the site; it should also show your services or products easily from the moment they land on your site. Your visitors should always know how to contact you.
The first-place people will land will be on your home page. Some businesses use other landing pages according to their marketing and what their offering is. These landing pages should be like a home page, giving a synopsis of what the service or product is that you are promoting.
Your site should have consistent branding throughout with clear navigation from all pages.
Although some people working in creative industries would forgo text for fabulous images you should always have some text on the home page ready to be viewed by search engines – this is the only way they can identify you.
Home page content
This page should clearly show some key elements:
- Branding and identity
- Clear navigation
- Title
- Text
- Contact information
Branding and identity
Your logo and navigation (menu options or tabs)
Title
Page titles or headings are important for search engines, these can be as simple as welcome to your company with at least one keyword saying what you do.
Text
Introduction text – a clear first paragraph that defines what you do or what you offer. This first paragraph should be constructed to include the text that people may use to search for you.
Further text can be broken up into sections with sub-headings for visitors to quickly identify what they are reading. There are professionals who specialise in writing content for marketing and websites should you feel your writing skills aren’t directional enough.
Images
It goes without saying that the internet is a visual medium and so using images can really make your site stand out from the crowd. Use engaging images that reinforce your brand or pictures of your products that are styled well. These can be sourced through image libraries that sell affordable images or if you like their styles you can download high quality free images from:
- Unsplash – www.unsplash.com
- Pikwizard – www.pikwizard.com – Pikwizard have both a free image library and premium paid for images
It is considered good manners to give the photographers a credit!
Video is a bonus on websites, often these are talking head videos of the business owner with a short introduction to the site.
Tell your visitors what to do next
Call to action or similar giving your visitor an easy way to get in touch with you and a reason to do so.
Contact information must be visible on all pages, I put mine on the footer on every page. Some clients like to have a bold telephone number or email link right at the top.
Legal stuff
All websites should contain a Privacy Policy and Website Terms. Limited companies should always show the registered number of the company.
Content for other pages
Different businesses need different content to showcase or sample their work or products, this can be very individual to the business.
My clients like to see work I have done so I include a portfolio of work with easy visuals. As I have built my business on referrals and recommendations, I always include testimonials about the service I offer – new enquiries often refer to them, so I know they are read.
If you are selling products or services directly it is important that you display the price they will be paying, and if this includes VAT or delivery.
Keeping content up-to-date
It is most important that any content you have on your site is up-to-date, you can sometimes spot a site that hasn’t been looked at or checked for a while so ensure you have a regular review to see what can be taken off or what can be added. Links to other sites should be checked to ensure they are still ‘live’.
Google Analytics is a good tool to show what people look at on your site, what pages are popular and where people click to get information. It is a tool that will prove invaluable when you are reviewing or auditing your site.
For more information on planning your content click here to get in touch. If you would like recommendations for image libraries or copywriters with specialities just let me know, I can help point you in the right direction.