Well Designed Websites and Marketing Strategy
Why Websites matter? Well, it is quite easy. A well-designed website, as part of a marketing strategy, can help you achieve your goals and grow your business. That been said, when doing research, a customer’s first point of contact with your business is most often online. Furthermore, if you don’t have a website, or if it’s not visible online, you won’t get the opportunity of the sale.
Most importantly, a leading website also helps you to establish credibility online by making your business legitimate. It is important to note, websites usually include location maps, directing customers to your business, as well as testimonials and ratings that indicate what people think of the business.
That been said, these give prospective customers an indication of how trustworthy you are and that you deliver the services you claim to offer. Positive referrals will do wonders for your business. Furthermore, with less time available, people use online platforms to compare products and services quickly. Having your dream website designed properly ensures that your prospective customers save time assessing your brands, product features, prices, sizes, and colours, which they are likely to compare with competitive brands.
Online Strategy
Firstly for an online marketing strategy to be successful, your online presence has to be professional, modern and user friendly. Secondly, your website is also what links all your other online strategies. Every piece of content, communication, or advert you place online should drive customers to your website – the backbone of your online presence. Considering this, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) must be part of your strategy for the following reasons:
- Users expect top brands to be on the first page of Google
- Provides long-term sustainable visibility on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS)
- Strengthens visibility and credibility
- Takes real estate away from competitors
- Reduces reliance on media budget
- Captures the most market share (up to 75%)
It should be noted, when designing a website, it is important to ask yourself the following questions to ensure a user-friendly, visible online presence:
Purpose and audience
Why are you designing the website? What products and services do you want to promote? Who is your target audience? Are you creating an e-commerce website or a brochure-type website?
Layout and structure
Ease of use is essential to your website’s performance. For example, is it mobile friendly? Can it work on all makes of mobile phones? Can the customer find what they are looking for?
Design
Is your website visibly appealing and consistent with your corporate identity?
Navigation
Users need to find their way around your website easily. Do you have strategically placed breadcrumb trails that ensure users can navigate easily and effectively to avoid confusion?
Graphics
It is important to note; graphics can increase the size of the site, making the website difficult to load. Are your images set to a specific resolution and dimension to allow the website to load quickly? Do you have tags associated with your graphics that include names and file names that contain keywords?
Conclusion
Overall, there are 250 variables with more than 10 000 variations or sub-signals that Google uses in its algorithm. These need to be optimised following Google’s best practice guidelines where Relevance + Importance + Trust = Rank Position.
It is to be noted; Google gives preference to websites that put the user first!
Need a quote? Complete this online questionnaire, and we will get back to you. Click here.
