There are many elements to be considered when building a website. It is a complex process with many factors impacting the final effectiveness of a site.  Highlighted below are a few of the things that need to be considered when building a business website.

Design

It is so important to get this right. Research shows that around 75% of people use visual thinking, so they will make their mind up before they have even read a word of your content, based merley on the look of your website.

If your Internet marketing is working, then people who have never heard of you before, will be finding your site – the first thing they will see is your website. You need to make this first impression count.

Content management system (CMS)

A CMS is a must for any business website. Why? Well, you need to be able to make changes to your site regularly; you need to add new content regularly and a CMS allows you to do this. You are in control of your site so you are not beholdent to a web design company to make changes when they can fit them in.

A website is a living entity, not a static one; your business is not static it changes, so your business website should change to reflect the developments in your business.

Content

Content is critical to conveying your message and getting results. It is content which tells the story. If you have a great looking site but have little content, your site has no soul or purpose.

Unless you are a budding novelist, it is highly recommended that you consider outsourcing the writing of content for key pages to a professional – a copywriter. A word smith can help get your message across in a readable and effective way. This has been proved time and time again to improve the conversion for a business website.

Calls to action

You need to tell your visitors what you want them to do. Simply having a ‘contact us’ page in a vain hope that people will always go there if they are interested, is not good enough.

A business website must have numerous ‘hooks’ to entice people to undertake desired actions.. so tell them what you want them to do.