Websites can be complicated, overwhelming, and a drain of time and resources. We have seen it happen to businesses, large and small, before we stepped in to help. 

So today, we want to help you understand several important parts of a website that make it successful. 

Whether you’re creating a new website, updating an old one, or looking at your current website wondering if it’s good enough, this blog can help you! 

Instead of walking through the technical side of building a website, we’ll be diving into actionable ideas that can help you across the board – no matter how your website is built or hosted. 

If you’d just like a quick overview of tips you can use to improve your website optimization, watch the video:

Below, we cover the following topics:

• Know Your Target Audience
• Create Copy for Your Target Audience
• Design an Attractive & Functional Website
• Drive Traffic to Your Website
• Work On Your Search Engine Optimization
• Use a Trusted Partner

Know Your Target Audience

It’s the first step we always use at Elevate. In order to build a successful website, you have to know who you are building it for. 

If you don’t know who your specific target audience is, then you’ll have a hard time building a website that is successful at attracting them and converting them into customers! If you need help figuring out your target audience, we’d be happy to talk through it in a free consultation. 

However, if you know your target audience, you’re ready to start building or updating! Keep these questions in mind as you go through the rest of the ideas below: 

• Does my imagery and design appeal to my target audience
• Does my messaging speak well into my target audience’s needs?

If you don’t have an idea of the answers, you can find out by talking to your current customers or by surveying potential customers.

Create Copy for Your Target Audience

With your target audience in mind, it’s time to think about how you are communicating with your audience through your written material known as copy.

No matter how large or small you’re planning on making your website, choose and create your copy with care. 

Some common areas you’ll need to write copy for would include many popular sections or pages on a website, such as: 

• About Page or Section
• Contact Page or Section
• Testimonials or Credentials
• Packages, Services, or Goods
• Blog

In each of these areas, pause to consider how you can best speak to your audience. If you have content that is already performing well, like a one-pager or email material, you could see how to pull some of that wording into your website.

Tell Your Story Through Your Copy: Highlight Their Problem and Offer Your Solution

So, how is it that you can speak into your target audience’s needs throughout your website? By addressing their problem and offering your solution.

When you create copy for your products or services, make sure that you:

1. Relate to your potential customers
2. Understand why they NEED your product/service

You can do this by following these steps:

1. Share a story (their problem) 
2. Share the solution (your product/service)
3. Highlight the Steps to get the Solution (what happens next?)

The Consumer’s “Problem”

The consumer wants to know what they will gain from your product or service. They don’t necessarily want the tiny details of the product itself. 

A mistake you can make on your website is talking solely about yourself, rather than bringing the consumer in. If you’re only speaking about your brand, your service, your experience, your product, your awards, the consumer might quickly feel lost. 

That’s why you include the problem that the consumer can relate to. 

This might look like: 

• Shirt Company: It can be difficult to find eco-friendly, affordable shirts in 2020. 
• HR Consultant: Need help retaining your employees? 
• Therapist: With social distancing, you might feel alone, anxious, or depressed right now. 

If you’re speaking to your target audience, they will see this problem you’re discussing and feel seen. 

If you can, try to describe the problem they might be facing in the form of a story.  

Consumers have learned to tune out copy that sounds like an advertisement, but as humans, we all respond to story-telling. You could tell the story of “the problem” in a first person perspective, in the perspective of the consumer, or even as the reason the founder started the business. 

Offering Your Solution

Once you have connected with your potential customers, you can offer them the solution to that problem: your product or service.

In this space you can better relate the problem with the solution by sharing how their life will change once the problem is gone. Using the same examples above that might look like: 

• Shirt Company: Feel good about supporting a brand that gives back to the environment. 
• HR Consultant: Build a company culture your employees will long to be a part of. 
• Therapist: Feel like yourself again and learn helpful coping skills for troubling times. 

Help your potential customer see how their life will change. If you can, help them feel it before it even happens.

Share the Steps to Get Your Solution

Let your potential customers know how to get your product or service by making it very clear what the action steps are to get it.

Using the examples above, that might be: 

• Shirt Company: Click here to explore our shirt options and add your favorite to your cart. 
• HR Consultant: Schedule a free consultation by filling out the form below. 
• Therapist: Call me at (number) to learn more or to schedule your intake appointment. 

It’s best to keep these steps as short as possible – you don’t want to make it seem difficult or complicated to acquire your product or services.

Driving Sales Through Calls to Action

Highlighting the steps to get your solution or interact with you further is called a Call to Action or CTA. Your call to action should be clear, direct, concise, and easily accessible. 

There are a few main calls to action you can have throughout your website.

One call to action might lead your customers to contact you directly.

An example of this would be the saying: Fill out the contact form to schedule a free consultation. You’ll usually see this call to action for independent consultants, tech companies, and other service providers.

Another call to action might be to have them give you their contact information.

An example of this would be saying: Sign up for our newsletter to receive 15% off your first purchase. This gives you the important ability to stay in touch with your potential customer and hopefully convert them into a loyal supporter.

Last, but certainly not least, you might include a direct call to action to have your customer buy your product.

This might be by saying: Buy our product today to start living your life your way. Or, something along the lines of – it’s time for you to purchase because we have the solution for your need!

Adding CTAs to Your Website

It’s important to include calls to action throughout the copy on your website. By doing this, you’re signaling where your potential buyer should go and leading them through the buying process. Here are some ideas for how to integrate CTAs into your website. 

If your CTA is the main button on your home page, it’s extremely easy for the consumer to start the buying process. For instance, if you want to make it as easy as possible for your potential buyer to buy your product or services, you might make that the main button on your home page.

You can include different CTAs in different sections of your website.

 For instance, if someone is visiting your About page, that might signal they’re just learning about you for the first time, and you might have a CTA that helps them get more information about you.

If your potential customers are on a page that might signal they’re close to buying, you might want to put a direct CTA to buy your product.

Be a Helpful Expert and Resource

As you walk your customer through the buyer journey, consider how you can be seen as a guide, knowledgeable resource, or thought leader.

While you don’t want to come across as arrogant, you do want to highlight your knowledge in your industry and anticipate questions they may have along the way. If they have questions you don’t answer in your website copy, make it easy for them to look at FAQ or submit questions of their own.

Design an Attractive & Functional Website

Design an attractive and easy-to-use website. Sounds easy, right? 

Well, judging by the number of bad websites we’ve seen (you’ve seen them too!), it is one of those things that is easier said than done. 

But, that’s okay, because no matter the current state of your website, you can follow these website optimization tips to take it to the next level. 

1. Make sure the navigation of your website is clear
2. Follow basic design principles
3. Check that your website is mobile friendly
4. Use imagery and videos

Make sure the navigation of your website is clear.

Your customers should be able to find what they need easily. I have seen websites before that have over 10 different options at part of their high-level navigation, and then each has its own drop-down. This can be overwhelming to consumers if not done right. Consider how you want your customers to flow through your website and put together a design that makes that happen.

Follow basic design principles.

Take a look at your website with a designer’s eye, and if you don’t have one, we’d be happy to lend ours! 

Consider if you are making use of white space. A wall of copy, no matter how well written, can be an instant turn-off to some customers. 

Keep user’s choices to a minimum. If a user has too many choices, each choice is more complex, and it will take users more time to reach a decision. 

Place related elements in common spaces. If elements are placed near each other on a page, they are thought of as connected to each other. 

See if you’re using too many colors or fonts. Basic design principles suggest using three or less fonts and three or less colors to keep things looking clean and easy-to-read. I will say, we’ve seen websites with more colors done really well and websites with less colors done poorly, but in general, how clean and functional is your design?

Check that your website is mobile-friendly.

In 2018, 58% of site visits were from mobile devices. You need to expect that a vast number of website visitors are coming via mobile and build a website that is responsive to that. 

Browse your website from its mobile view (most page-builds or WordPress themes come with an option to preview in mobile) to make sure your design holds up. Some designers are even choosing to design mobile-first and then building the desktop versions.

Make use of imagery and videos

Imagery and videos are important assets to leverage on your website. At a high level, they break up those walls of text that can turn customers off. But they also provide an effective way for you to make sure your target audience feels seen by using imagery that speaks to them. 

If you’re able to pull together a video for your product or service, you’ll be glad that you did. 

Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video, compared to 10% when reading it in text. (Insivia)

Drive Traffic To Your Website

You know what popular phrase does not apply to websites: “If you build it, they will come.” 

In fact, building a great website is just the first step in really leveraging your website’s full potential. Below, we’ll explore key ways that you can drive traffic to your website, so that all of your hard work in creating your website pays off.

Social Media

We all know social media is important for businesses. Some of the main benefits of social media include: spreading brand awareness, gaining leads from your followers, or directly making sales.

Here are a few quick facts: 

A great way to gain leads, spread brand awareness, or make sales from social media is to direct consumers to your website in your posts. You can do that by making a social media graphic that goes with a new blog you’ve written and link to your blog in your post. Or you could talk directly about your products & services and link to your website to learn more information. Finding interesting things to post on social media that link back to your website is crucial to driving traffic to your website.

Email Newsletters

Email marketing is a widely-used form of content marketing. Most likely you have promotional emails from companies gathering in your inbox now.

So many companies use email marketing because of its benefits that include:

1. Allowing you to directly contact your customers quickly and efficiently resulting in brand awareness, sales, and engagement
2. Promoting your other channels of content marketing by linking your emails to your blog, influencer activities, social media, and website
3. Insight into what type of content your customers respond to by analyzing subject lines and click-through-rates inside of emails

Linking blogs, discounts, new products/services, package deals, etc. in your newsletter can help drive traffic to your website. Any time you send out a newsletter, it’s important to link to relevant content, but always make sure you have links to your website as well, because ultimately you want leads to end up buying your services/products on your website.

Blogs

Adding blogs as part of your content marketing plan has many benefits, but two really important ones are: 

1. Attracting new customers to your website
2. Increasing your ranking on search engines (such as getting to the top spot for a term like ‘rent camping gear near Rocky Mountain National Park’)

Blogs can add useful information to your website that attracts consumers in a non-salesy way. For example, if your company sells hiking gear, you could start a blog about the offerings of different national parks. Consumers looking to plan a hiking trip who come across your blog initially read the content because they want to plan activities on their trip, but while reading your blog, see that you sell hiking boots and decide to take a look at them.

SEO

SEO is a crucial tool businesses utilize to direct traffic to their website. While you shouldn’t rely on organic reach alone, you should strive to make it as good as possible. We will have a whole section on SEO in the next section of the blog.

Paid Ads

Paid ads are unavoidable in the current internet climate. We talked about using ads on social media in our last blog. Using ads on the internet are just as important!

You can pay for search ads, display ads, or even YouTube ads! These ads will let you control the type of audience that see your ads, what kind of websites your ads show up on, or what kind of videos show your ads. There are also remarketing settings to help lead consumers down your sales funnel.

Work on Your Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. According to Moz.com, they define SEO as “the practice of increasing both the quality and quantity of website traffic, as well as exposure to your brand, through non-paid (also known as ‘organic’) search engine results.”

The majority of online traffic is driven by search engines. 

On these search engines, organic results receive more clicks than ads because they look more credible. When your website has good SEO, you will have increased traffic, your CTR (click through rate) will improve, and your business will show up quickly in organic search engine results from certain keywords. Overall, SEO helps you gain traction online, which when done right, will in turn increase your sales. 

In this section, we will talk a little bit about two SEO terms you should know and utilize to help your website.

What are Title Tags?

A meta title tag “is an HTML element that specifies the title of a web page. Title tags are displayed on search engine results pages as the clickable headline for a given result, and are important for usability, SEO, and social sharing,” (Moz.com). Title tags are used as a description of the content on a webpage. 

The optimal length of a title tag is under 60 characters because Google usually only displays the first 50-60 characters. (Moz.com) 

Title Tags are important in helping search engines properly display and sort your website, and it’s the first impression a potential lead will have of your website. Title tags show up in search engine result pages, web browsers, and social networks.

What are SERPs?

SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page, the page you see after you’ve conducted an online search. SERP features are results displayed in a non-standard format, such as featured snippets, ask boxes, image carousels, and much more. (Moz.com)

Certain SERP features on Google are organic and can be influenced by SEO, such as a featured snippet (promoted organic result that displays an answer inside a box). 

The goal is to get a great organic ranking on a search engine from the keywords that best pertain to your business and industry. However, this is all to create clicks to your website. It doesn’t matter if you have a high search engine ranking if people aren’t clicking your website.

Basic Steps to Improve SEO

1. Publish Relevant Industry-Related Content. This is where blogging can come into play. Use keyword phrases in your titles/headings.

2. Make Sure You’re Filling Out Your Metadata. Insert information about the contents of your web page in the URL. 
3. Use Alt Tags. When you have visual and audio media, use alternative text descriptions so that search engines can locate your page and reach those who use text-only browsers.

Use a Trusted Partner to Help You Build Your Dream Website & Bring Your Customers to It

This is the part where we put our call to action! 

Whether you’re looking for someone to help you update your current website or you need a hand in getting your customers to it, we are here to help.

Click here to schedule a free consultation.