How To Plan & Build a Killer Website
In this video I’m going to address the key steps in planning and building a killer website for your business.
Let me start by saying that building a great website is a process. In fact, the process is ongoing because your website will always be a ‘work in progress’ thanks to changing consumer behaviour and technological change.
Before you start you need to be clear about the purpose of your website. In my opinion, the primary purpose is to generate more traffic … convert that traffic into customers … and make more money. Unfortunately 98% of websites fail in this regard.
Most people are in a rush to build their website and expect instant results but before you get started you need to do some preliminary work. Firstly, you need to register a domain name or names, create a web ready logo, set up a Google account with analytics enabled and get the hosting sorted.
With those things ticked off you then need to choose a platform to build your website on. Platforms like Wordpress, Drupal and Joomla are the most popular but there are others to consider like Synergy 8. You then need to decide on the pages to include on your site and their order.
For most business owners the biggest challenge is writing quality, original content. It is a skill and you need to produce content that will appeal to your ideal customer and that means embedding keywords and phrases in the content to attract the attention of the search engines like Google. You also need to source suitable images to complement the text on the pages.
In the planning phase you also need to earmark a piece of signature content that could become your ‘lead magnet’ which is something you give away for free in exchange for a prospect’s contact details. The objective is to build a list of prospects in your pipe line for future marketing campaigns.
In the planning phase you also need to make a decision about having a blog, videos and the social media channels to include on your site. Will you need a shopping cart, opt-in boxes, a newsletter subscription box plus think about having a database or CRM system in the back end to email your customers and prospects.
In the design phase you need to make sure your website is responsive to mobiledevices and there are other features to consider like landing pages. It’s starting to sound complex but you can’t ignore search engine optimisation or SEO.
This is the process of improving your website ranking with Google and the other search engines when someone does a search for the key phrases in your industry. For example ‘plumber Richmond’ or ‘car finance Melbourne’. This is a critical part of your planning because there’s no point investing in a new website if you can’t get found by the search engines. Statistics tell us that you need to appear on page one in the top three organic search results to get serious traffic.
What will be the HEADLINE on your website? What is the end benefit your ideal customers will get from using your products or services? This could be more profit, save time, save money or more customers. The headline must re-assure your prospects who land on your site they’ve found what they’re looking for.
Don’t forget to plan your CALLS TO ACTION because they tell your visitors and prospects precisely what you want them to do next. It could be - call us now, book an appointment or click here to get instant access. Your calls to action must be graphically designed and visually appealing to convert.In summary, it’s very easy to get overwhelmed with all this planning but if your website doesn’t perform your business won’t reach its full profit potential.
We are here to help and guide you through the website planning and development phases and our marketing skills differentiate us from other accounting firms. Contact us today and let’s get to work on your website and your business so it’s more profitable, valuable and saleable.