The importance of your professional website is no secret to people in business. Your website being the central hub of your information means that it’s the digital space your audiences will return to when they’re looking to find out more about your brand or when they’ve decided to commit to using your services. It might be that simply hearing about you through your SEO efforts has led people here, or it could be that linking your website in with your social media pages has had the desired outcome of leading them to it.
In any case, it’s where people who are interested in your brand are going to be. This means that you want it to be as effective as possible at showing them why you’re the right choice for them.
1. The Aesthetic Design
The first thing that you’ll likely think of when trying to improve your website might well relate to the aesthetic design. After all, it’s one of the more immediately apparent components of it. Therefore, you’re right in thinking that you need to make a strong impression.
Aesthetic taste is subjective, but it also changes according to trends over time, and this is also true for the specific art of web design. It’s not just enough to follow these trends, though, as you’ll need to link tastes (like minimalism, for example) to your own brand aesthetic. A brand like Apple, for instance, already has the concept of minimalism imbued into its brand aesthetic, so it’s a consideration that you need to make.
2. Connection to Branding
It does go deeper than that, though. The colors and font that you use, the images, and the general experience of your website, these all need to feel in keeping with your brand in one way or another. If not, it could lack the ability to extend a positive impression of your brand and the website might end just feeling disconnected.
If it’s an app that you’re talking about instead of exclusively a website, this branding link might come through in how users use the app in a functional way. It might be that the app has a utility in store or in regard to the transactions made through it.
3. Technological Competency
Your website doesn’t just have to function as a hub of information, it can also be a demonstration of what you and your team are capable of. A flat website that consists of nothing but text won’t likely make the kind of impression that you’re aiming for here. Instead, you need to think how you can use tools like APIs through companies like Kong that can integrate other software examples into your platform, which will establish it as something more professional and polished than what else is on the market. You’ll want users to feel both impressed and comforted by the digital space, and this can add to the positive impression of your brand that was previously mentioned.
4. Accessibility Options
Not everyone who visits your website is going to be viewing it in exactly the same way, though, and this can make accessibility options important in allowing everyone to get the most out of it. The purpose that it serves is two-fold. The obvious and more important aspect to consider here is how it allows more people to engage with your brand and doesn’t discriminate against anyone unintentionally. However, that does segue into the second purpose of doing this, which is avoiding the negative PR that might come along with being perceived as being ignorant of the importance of these issues. Therefore, understanding the steps that you can take to make your website or app more accessible might be more crucial than you initially thought.
5. Contact Information
Part of the reason that audiences may have sought out your website in the first place could be because they’ve decided that they want to get in touch with you. This might be in relation to a specific query or complaint, so this means finding the information they need could be the factor upon which your future professional relationship with this customer hinges.
You feel like you might want to avoid a situation where it’s possible for this complaint to be made, but that will only burn the bridge entirely. Instead, welcoming the opportunity to receive customer feedback and taking the opportunity to deliver high-quality customer service might turn this into an experience that’s much more positive than it initially appeared.
6. Social Media Links
As mentioned previously, it might be that people found your website in the first place because of how you made the link apparent on social media. If you haven’t done so yet, you might be losing out on a lot of the traffic that this could bring.
Ultimately, while your website remains the centerpiece of this whole operation, you’re trying to create a consistent and holistic online experience for your audiences. Once they find one element of your brand, whether it’s through some of your SEO content or a social media post that was shared by a page they follow, they should be able to follow the trail back to your website. All roads lead to Rome, and in order for this operation to be a success, your website needs to be easy to locate through each of these threads.
7. Fresh and Relevant
If people find themselves at your website, you have them right where you want them, and this is the perfect opportunity to make the best impression that you can and seal the deal. However, if your audiences find that the information on your website is outdated or that the website in general hasn’t been updated in a long time, it might not take them too long to decide that they’ve had a change of heart about the whole thing.
This once again feeds into the idea of your website being the hub of your brand. While it might be quicker to offer an update on social media with a short post, this can lead to your website becoming obsolete and unappealing to your audiences.