The Importance of a Website for Your Business Success

Many consumers are looking online for information that will help them make more informed purchasing decisions. In fact, according to the Shopify Global Ecommerce Playbook, $4.8T global ecommerce sales are expected by 2021 and 2.1B+ shoppers are expected to buy goods and services.

As online shoppers are increasingly looking outside their country’s borders for purchases, your global customers are right around the corner. Your website is the single most important marketing tool you have. Start turning your visitors into customers.

 

 

Good website design isn’t just about a really nice looking site. To be successful in the modern marketplace, you’ve got to have a professional website. Your website is the backbone of your business, supporting all of your digital marketing efforts. We’ll discuss the importance of a website for your business success, what you need to know and how to get started with a professional website for your business.

 

The Importance of a Website for Marketing

Your website is the single most important marketing tool for your business and extends to every aspect of your digital marketing strategy. It serves as a virtual equivalent of a physical business for the 3 billion+ internet users. Every type of communication, piece of content or advertisement that you put online, will drive the consumer back to your website. It’s vital that your website gives consumers a clear idea of what your brand is about and what types of products or services you offer.

 

Social Media Marketing

To begin with, let’s take a look at social media marketing and how to reach and engage with your audience. Once you engage with your consumers, like posts via third-party social media sites: similar to our Instagram post below, you have to send them somewhere where they can learn more about your post, or perhaps you and your business. It’s ok telling your consumers in your post that you are a great VA, but if they don’t understand exactly what a VA is, then they can follow the link to a blog post on your website, for example, telling them more about what a VA actually is.   > See more about integrating social media below

 

 

Your website is an important part of your marketing strategy

Your website is your “shop front” where your customers go to make purchases or learn more about a product or service you offer. Your website is an important part of your marketing strategy where your content lives. Whether it’s product descriptions, services or blog posts, this is where you display this information so that your visitors and prospective customers can see it. Your website is where you host all of the content your business has to offer, a place to inform and engage your target audience – just like the blog post you’re reading right now!

Your website is also a vital part of a coherent email marketing strategy. If you are using email marketing, like regular newsletters and special offers for example, your website is where you’d direct your target audience. Once they’ve received your email they’ll click a link and go directly to your website. Your website or a specific page on your website is the perfect place to guide your email subscribers. It’s then up to you to convert this into an enquiry, to learn more about a product or even make a purchase.

We regularly send subscribers to our newsletters, updates and information on our services so they can keep up to date. They do this by clicking the links in our email which take them to a "landing page" on our website.




PPC or Pay Per Click

PPC is a digital advertising model in which the advertiser pays an amount (fixed or determined by auction) each time a user clicks on one of their ads to visit their website. The idea of a pay per click campaign is to "buy visits" for a specific site. The aim is generally to generate a specific type of user action, such as registering or buying a product, for example.

 

 

Your PPC ads need a place to lead consumers to. The landing page is the site to which the user is directed after clicking on an ad. The main characteristics of a good landing page are clarity, simplicity and relevance with respect to the advertisement.

It depends on the user whether they end up converting or leave after just a few seconds. This implies that it is very important for the site to be well optimised.

 

Search engine optimisation (SEO)

SEO is an acronym that stands for search engine optimisation, which is the process of optimising your website in the way that your marketing tactic works to get traffic from the search engine results page. In other words, SEO involves ensuring that your website design and content are more attractive to a search engine. You do this in hope that the search engine will display your website as a top result on the search engine results page. The more optimised this site is for search engines like Google, the more chances you have to reach new consumers.

 

The importance of a Website for Sales

Whether it’s products or services you are offering, these are vital to every business. Ensuring that you optimise sales is the best way to maintain and improve the health and success of your business. It’s the only way that your company can survive. The role that your website plays in this process is indispensable.

By having a solid online presence through your website, you are able to reach more consumers. The more consumers you reach online, the more opportunities you have to close a sale. A well developed website doesn’t automatically bring paying customers to your door. Nonetheless, with proper search engine optimisation of your website, you can improve your chances of bringing in more eligible leads who are more likely to make a purchase. A website can also increases your availability to make sales. With a website, you can sell your products and services around-the-clock. You don’t have to be actively engaging with leads 24/7 because they are able to get the information they need from your website even when you’re not around. The content that’s on your website serves as an additional sales person, helping customers get the information they need and convincing them of the benefits of your products or services.

 

Building Branding with a Website

The importance of a website for branding and building credibility is also something that you need to consider carefully. In today’s digital marketplace, any business without a website is often seen as less credible. The reason for this is because most companies do have a website, so those that don’t may look like they have something to hide.

How do you build credibility through a website? Well, it shows consumers exactly what your brand is all about. You are able to showcase your products and services and you can also tell consumers about your company and its mission. Where you are based, who your founders are, perhaps a little background information and so on. And of course a contact form so that they can ask you questions. By helping consumers get to know your business, you are working to establish trust, which is the first step in building long-lasting customer relationships.

When it comes to finding a reputable business, consumers need to know about your brand. Are you an established company? Can you be trusted? The content that you display on your website helps show consumers that you know what you’re doing. By providing interesting and informative content, you can work to build stronger relationships with consumers and encourage conversions. To be able to differentiate between you and your competitors also gives you an opportunity to show your customers what sets your business apart from the rest.

 

Professional Web Design

As we said earlier, your website is your “shop front” and very often your customers’ first impression of your brand. Even if you are a small local business selling coffee and sandwiches for example, there’s a good chance that your customers are researching your business online before they come in. That’s why it’s vital that you have a professionally designed website - it reflects who you are.

 

• A professional fully responsive website works across all platforms

 

If a website is unattractive, uninformative or difficult to navigate, then you may be turning your customers away without even realising it. In fact, in a recent survey from B2B it was shown that as many as 94% of consumers feel that poorly designed websites is the main reason that they mistrust or reject a website.

A professionally designed website should (at the very least) include the following elements:

 

• Easy Navigation – It should be simple for visitors to find what they’re looking for on your site. Navigation menus, drop-downs etc. should be clear and simple, helping visitors find what they’re looking for in just a few seconds without the need to hop around.
• Pleasing Design – Your website should be appealing, using colours and images that speak your brand. A professional website should have content that’s easy to read and quick to load.
• Informative Content – The content on your site should be concise, informative and helpful. Visitors should be able to see your products and services at a glance. It should also contain and emphasise bullet points and more importantly, relevant keywords that your consumers might use when searching, to find brands like yours.
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – Your site structure and content both need to be optimised for search engines like Google, to ensure that consumers can find your site online.
• Fast Website Load Times – The ideal website load time is around 2 to 5 seconds. However, each second beyond 2 seconds results in greater bounce rates. In fact, 40% of polled internet users report abandoning a site if it takes longer than a few seconds to load.
• Easy Shopping Conversions – Your website should make it easy for visitors to convert with a quick and simple check-out process. Your shopping cart should also be easy for customers to navigate and come back to if they click away from your page.

 

Don’t have the resources or experience to design and maintain a professional, working website? Then get in touch with us we'll be happy to help!
Nicky Myers VA-UK Founder & Director.

 

 

 

Getting Started with a Website for Your Business

As we’ve illustrated above, the importance of a fully optimised website for your business success is very clear. Without a professionally designed website, even if you “do it yourself”, it can be difficult to reach and engage with your target customers online properly.

It’s clear, that if you want to do business in today’s modern marketplace, you need to have a solid website presence. Getting started with a professional website for your business doesn’t have to be difficult. There are a variety of website building services and Content Management Systems or CMS, that are database driven to manage all of your content. These can be used when developing a website to make it possible for you to design your own attractive website in just a few hours.

WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors, drag and drop website building and services like SquareSpace and Wix are easy to use and affordable. If you have some HTML experience and web design knowledge, you can also use Joomla, which is free to get started.

However, if you are serious about launching a professional fully responsive website - one that works across all platforms including mobile phones and tablets, and optimising your site for the search engines (SEO), then you may want to work with a professional web design company. Although working with web design professionals does require an up-front investment, you’ll find that the money you spend on professional web design services is well worth it.

A professional web design company knows exactly what it takes to develop and design a site that offers a positive user experience. They can create clean and simple navigation that makes it easy for your site visitors to find the content they are looking for. A professional web design company can build a mobile-optimised, beautiful, functional, and strategically designed website tailored to your needs and your strengths. A website that speaks your brand, captivates your target audience and generates leads. Plus, with CMS websites like Joomla and our other examples, even users with limited expertise, can manage and modify content on a website without the need for specialised technical knowledge. Whilst the functionality of the packages is fixed, and the design is completely bespoke, and with CMS, you have full content management control, so updating and managing your website is easy. A professional web design company will get to the root of your message and then portray that in the most powerful way to ensure that your customers understand your business and services. A website that reflects your values, has effective landing pages and contains strategically placed powerful ‘calls-to-action’. 

 

The Importance Of integrating Social Media Into Your Website

The social media platform is a crucial tool for your business marketing strategy. Social Media increase awareness about your business, connect you with your customer and increase your leads and incomes. To engage with brands and latest fashion trends most of the people use social media accounts.

Most companies are now leveraging the power of social media in their marketing campaigns. However, many aren't fully exploiting social media on their company website. Social media and your website can blend together seamlessly to promote your brand and increase your online presence.

 

Ways to Integrate Social Media Into Your Website

 

Here are five simple ways of achieving this:

• Create Custom Social Media Buttons. Adding links to your social media profiles is the simplest way of integrating social media into your website.
• Add a Twitter Feed on Your Homepage.
• Include Sharing Buttons on Your Blog Posts.
• Utilise an Instagram Gallery.
• Allow Users to Sign-up/Log-in with Facebook.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Manage your social network channels

Adding links to your social media profiles is the simplest way of integrating social media into your website. Links to social media profiles allow users to quickly navigate to their favourite network as a means to find out more about your company, contact you, or share your content. It’s also a way of computing popularity of a brand or company by extracting information from social media channels, blogs etc.

 

All a little too much for you?

Why not let us help you keep track and manage your social network channels, enable you to monitor what people are saying about your brand and help you respond instantly. VA-UK realise how important it is to reach your target audience. We have the capability to follow-up or direct message your connections to reach an even wider audience, provide more detailed information and add that personal touch, effectively representing you.

VA-UK makes creating, scheduling, managing and reporting your social media content easier. From finding prospects to serving customers, VA-UK can help you do more with your social media and keep your social presence active — even when you’re not.


> See the Blog Article - Manage all your social media in one place

 

Time to call in the experts!

 

When it’s time to call in the experts, our team here at VA-UK can advise you, to help brands like yours reach new audiences online. To find out more about our Web Design Services, or to learn more about our Social Media Management Services, contact us today

 

 

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Please feel welcome to give us your thoughts by contacting us.