In this day and age, every business, every cause, and every group needs to have a website. It seems like a no brainer, but 40% of small businesses DON'T have website. Even if you are using social media channels to build an online presence for your business, a website is best since it is something that the business would own and would have complete control of.
Why You Need a Website
A website serves as a marketing tool and the very first impression that visitors will have of your business, cause, or group. Your website needs to communicate effectively on the home page, be user-friendly, and visually appealing. It can’t be treated with a “build it and they will come” mentality. Just like everything else in life, a website needs to have some semblance of strategy and direction.
With tools such as GoDaddy.com and Wordpress.com, it’s easier than ever to start your own website and to get something up in a matter of minutes. On top of that, these tools make it possible for just about anyone to have a quality website up about a business or cause, not something that looks like it was built in 1998. These tools are also so robust that you don’t even need any knowledge of HTML code in order to build something professional, although knowledge of HTML coding wouldn’t hurt. However, the ease of using these tools, and of the opportunity out there to develop your own website, shouldn’t be confused with the ease to creating and maintaining an awesome website. That last bit doesn’t come easily.
How to Build an Awesome Website
When starting a website, one aspect of the website that will separate the quality, professional ones from those homemade, amateur ones, is the content. Yes, the content maybe one of hardest parts of the website as well, as it requires the most thought. But, if you’re web content is incomplete, or if it contains spelling or grammatical errors, then what’s meant to educate and to inform visitors may actually end up driving them away. Take the time to write good content, or at least take the time to evaluate the quality of your web content on a regular basis. Great content is also more than the web content. It also include the business blogging, the meta descriptions, and the search engine optimization.
The Goal(s) of a Website
Another aspect to think about when starting your website is to think about the goals of your website, and why you, your business, your cause, or your group, needs a website. Is it to increase awareness about what you or your cause is doing? Is it to reach out to new people who may be interested in your group or your business? Is it to act as an e-commerce portal where customers can make purchases? These are questions that need to be thought about when starting a website because if they aren’t given any thought, there’s no way to ensure that your website will achieve the goals that you want it to achieve. Sure, you may also be putting up a website to compete with a competitor, or because you simply can’t get by without one, but you need to make sure that your website does more than that.
Overall, starting a website is the easy part. Getting it to be successful and to do what you need it to do is the hard part. Keep in mind that for many of your website’s visitors, that website serves as a first impression for yourself, your business, or group. You never get a second chance to make a good first impression, so make sure that you website makes that good first impression.
If you already have a website, but want to know how well your doing to achieve your online marketing goals, then sign up for our FREE website assessment. This will look at how well your website is doing when it comes to online marketing, as well as how it compares to your competitors. Click to button below to sign up:
