Building a fantastic website is a bit like doing interior design. You find lots of beautiful images on Pinterest, decide to emulate those ideas, and come off with a finished product that isn’t quite the same as the pictures.
That’s not unusual. It’s one thing to know what you want in your website, but it’s another to get the build as perfect as you want it.
So if you plan on launching a website this year, you have to know the most critical aspects to consider before starting construction. Here, we’ll outline the five most important factors when building a website.
#1: A Bold Brand
A beautiful brand is the foundation of any great website and branding is an essential skill to master in how to build a business website.
But branding doesn’t just mean choosing a nice logo and a pretty color scheme. Instead, branding goes to the heart of who you are as a company and how you get that message out to your audience clearly and coherently.
When creating your brand, start with a clear understanding of the customer you are targeting, and let this research shape how your brand develops. After all, your brand needs to inspire those who are most likely to buy.
Keep your message simple. If you can’t sum up your company in a single sentence, chances are you are overcomplicating things.
A short tagline is the starting point for all effective business branding. Then, imagery, font, and color should reflect that core message.
And don’t forget that a good brand is about people. So making you and your employees central to your branding will help you connect with your audience online. It will make your business and brand seem more human.
#2: Clear Call to Actions
A call to action is essentially an instruction, a button, or a link that gets your website visitor to do something that takes them one step closer to buying from you. It’s one of the cornerstones of an excellent website conversion rate.
The trick to adding a powerful call-to-action on your website is to gain a precise understanding of what you want your visitors to do when they land on your website.
Do you want to add new visitors to your mailing list? Do you want them to use your product search? Do you want them to see a special offer? Or do you want them to know about you, your company, and your values?
Knowing the answer to these questions will help you craft a website with the right call to action buttons that draw in the visitor’s eye and entice them to do what you want them to do.
Don’t forget, too, about the power of excellent copy. Labeling a button something bland like “submit” or “click here” isn’t going to attract or inspire people in the same way that “I want one” or “send me my discount” will do.
#3: Social Proof
Having a website that looks good, with a strong brand and clear messaging, is only the start.
Suppose you want to convert your visitors into buyers. In that case, you need to convince them that what you have to offer stands above anything else on the market.
That’s where social proof comes in. Social proof gives your visitors real-life examples of customer testimonials, results, or reviews. Once you have that, your business growth will never be held back.
Even when you are starting, a page with one or two testimonials from customers can be all you need to help convert visitors to buyers.
Don’t forget about other types of social proof, such as your social media profiles.
Linking to positive comments from happy customers who connect with you via social media can help your website look more reputable. It will make your company look like a serious contender in your industry.
#4: SEO
Though you might think the sole purpose of SEO is to drive traffic, good SEO is also central to how usable your website is in the eyes of Google.
Simple things like making sure your blog posts are relevant and engaging if someone lands on them will help you gain a good reputation with Google. It will improve your overall SEO ranking for your preferred keywords.
Using relevant keywords on your pages is also going to help with your conversions. A good keyword match will help you convert those referrals into customers if someone is searching for a particular product.
Don’t forget about testing too, when considering how to build a website. These tools will give you the information you need to test how usable and functional your website is before launching.
#5: Meeting Technical Standards
Technical standards may not be the most exciting topic when it comes to building your website. Still, an excellent technical website build is going to help your business establish a solid online reputation.
There is always a cost to build a website, but that cost is an investment. Take security, for example. All websites nowadays need to be secured with an HTTPS certificate.
When visitors are on your website and enter personal information or credit card details, this will give them the reassurance they need that your website is safe.
Another area to focus on with your technical build is how accessible your website is on mobile. Mobile now accounts for over half of all web traffic, so testing on mobile as part of your website build is essential.
Speed is also an area that you need to focus on optimizing, and a fast website will also help you with SEO.
Optimizing the speed on your website ensures that all uses, whatever their home connection, can load your content fast and get the information they need. A slow-loading website can stop users from visiting in the future.
Building a Website You Can Be Proud of
These five factors should be top of your priority list when it comes to building a website. It will make the difference between an average website and a website that stands out from the competition.
If you’ve launched a website recently, share your experience with us in the comments below and tell us what aspect you found most challenging during the build phase.
And if you enjoyed this article, browse around some of our business case studies now for more entrepreneurial guides.
