What to consider and why
Here is a comprehensive list pf 24 points to consider for your project. It is important you create a plan, that way you won’t repeat yourself or forget vital information. Do go through this list, make notes and develop your own check list before we start work on your project. The most common pages on successful websites include:
The key points to go through and check
1. Home Page (First Page)
This is your 'sales' page and should provide information about what you can do for your customers. It should also give your visitors a brief overview of what they can find on your site.
2. Services / Products
It is useful to have a separate page for each service/product and write as much detail about each as possible. If the page appears too long, we can always break it into more pages. When people are searching for information on the internet, they want to know it NOW. They don’t want to wait until tomorrow when they can speak to you on the phone. The more information you can provide about your products/services, the better.
3. Contact Us
Place contact details in as many places as possible. Make it easy for your customers to contact you. We create a special Contact Us page, and often include your details in 'About Us' page and a link at the bottom of each page. Information can include business name, physical address, mailing address, telephone, email, emergency number, website address, skype address, social media profile links.
4. Pricing
Whenever possible include the price of your products/services. Even if you can’t be specific, it is helpful to put at least a range of prices, for example "Carpet cleaning ranges between £40 – £60 per room."
5. Testimonials/ Product Reviews / Before & After
Include testimonials from your current clients to show your potential customers that you are trustworthy, reliable and that you offer great service and/or products. Make sure the testimonials are real and if possible provide contact details of the person who supplied you with the testimonial. If you don’t have any right now, get them! Simply email your customers and ask for their feedback on your business and service. Most happy customers will gladly provide this. You could also include before and after photos. Show the problem picture and beside it show the picture of resolution, with an explanation of your product’s benefits.
6. Frequently Asked Questions
This has proven to be a great time saver for many companies. Instead of having to answer the same questions over and over again, place them on your website and keep adding to them. The more information you have on your website, the less time you will need to spend answering questions by email or phone. Frequently Asked Questions should address your client’s concerns that may otherwise be an obstacle to committing to purchase from you.
7. Response form such as Subscribe or Enquiry form
An absolute must if you want to build a mailing list. Most people don’t like giving out too much information, so ask only the basics, such as Name and Email Address. Then keep in touch with your customers on a regular basis by sending out information that may be of interest to them. You may even wish to develop your own on-line magazine, for example Constant Contact, MailChimp or BenchMark. There are some fantastic free or inexpensive programs that can handle this.
8. Online Magazine or Newsletter
This is a great marketing tool. Not only does it help you keep in touch with your customers, but provides your website with fresh content. You can set up your Newsletter in two different ways:
9. Resources/ Articles
Add value to your business or project. Provide information that is complementary to what you do. For example, if you sell wedding dresses include information about reception venues, wedding planners, wedding cakes, flowers. By adding extra information you encourage more hits and therefore more traffic.
10. About Us
This is a very important page as it tells your customer about who you are and why they should buy your services or products and/or trust your organisation. It can also feature your business hours (if you have a physical shop or office) or when they can speak to someone live. Many companies and charities also include their aims, mission or purpose on this page, details of their staff (photos, biographies, qualifications), recently completed projects.
11. Guarantee
Offer a money-back guarantee. The longer the guarantee, the more effective it will be. It could be 30 days, 60 days, 1 year or lifetime.
12. Survey
Find out what customers think about your website, business service or product.
13. Events Calendar
This can relate to your business or industry. If you are an artist, you can feature dates where and when your art will be displayed or if you are a singer, where you will be performing.
14. Search My Website Feature
Some visitors to your site may not know exactly what they want but if you include a search function on your site, they can look for it very easily. Like search engines, this feature will allow your visitors to type in a word or phrase and then search for it on your site. It’s like having your own mini search engines, only instead of it searching the world wide web, it just searches your website.
15. Return/ Refund Policy
To make your customers feel more comfortable when making a transaction at your website, you should provide then with your return/ refund policy. Ensure it is easy to understand and spelt out step by step.
16. Privacy Policy
Privacy continues to be a major issue for clients and customers. Concerns about how their information is used can be a major barrier when purchasing online. Internet shopping experience is built on trust and privacy is the number one ingredient. Of course, we now have GDPR and so all our websites have a standard Website Privacy Policy which is compliant to GDPR, however you may like to tailor your own version.
17. Site Map
A site map is similar to a 'contents'. It shows visitors how the site is laid out and which sections are where.
18. Copyright Information
Your website should carry a copyright notice to protect its intellectual property. It is generally in the form of 'Copyright © 2020' plus a company name.
19. Links
We can place links to the manufacturers of your products, trade associations or complementary services. When you place links to other businesses, you can request they do the same for you. This will not only bring you more visitors, but may improve your search engine ranking.
20. Media Information
Include any information, articles, photos of your products, staff etc. that have appeared in the media – print, TV, radio or internet.
21. News & Updates
This can include news about your services/products or about your industry, or anything else that is relevant and current.
22. Online Store/ Booking/ Ticket Sales
An online store allows you sell products directly on the internet 24 hours a day 7 days a week. In building an online store it is important to take-in a number of key concepts:
23. Blog
A blog is simply a journal that is available on the web. Blogs are typically updated daily or weekly using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog. Blogs are a great tool as they help with:
24. Photo Gallery
Even if you do not wish to sell your products on-line, you may wish to showcase your goods or services in a special photo gallery – show how your products or services are being used by your clients or customers. They say “pictures speak a thousand words” and on your website it is particularly important.
Don’t give your visiting audience a reason to visit your competitor’s website!
This is your 'sales' page and should provide information about what you can do for your customers. It should also give your visitors a brief overview of what they can find on your site.
2. Services / Products
It is useful to have a separate page for each service/product and write as much detail about each as possible. If the page appears too long, we can always break it into more pages. When people are searching for information on the internet, they want to know it NOW. They don’t want to wait until tomorrow when they can speak to you on the phone. The more information you can provide about your products/services, the better.
3. Contact Us
Place contact details in as many places as possible. Make it easy for your customers to contact you. We create a special Contact Us page, and often include your details in 'About Us' page and a link at the bottom of each page. Information can include business name, physical address, mailing address, telephone, email, emergency number, website address, skype address, social media profile links.
4. Pricing
Whenever possible include the price of your products/services. Even if you can’t be specific, it is helpful to put at least a range of prices, for example "Carpet cleaning ranges between £40 – £60 per room."
5. Testimonials/ Product Reviews / Before & After
Include testimonials from your current clients to show your potential customers that you are trustworthy, reliable and that you offer great service and/or products. Make sure the testimonials are real and if possible provide contact details of the person who supplied you with the testimonial. If you don’t have any right now, get them! Simply email your customers and ask for their feedback on your business and service. Most happy customers will gladly provide this. You could also include before and after photos. Show the problem picture and beside it show the picture of resolution, with an explanation of your product’s benefits.
6. Frequently Asked Questions
This has proven to be a great time saver for many companies. Instead of having to answer the same questions over and over again, place them on your website and keep adding to them. The more information you have on your website, the less time you will need to spend answering questions by email or phone. Frequently Asked Questions should address your client’s concerns that may otherwise be an obstacle to committing to purchase from you.
7. Response form such as Subscribe or Enquiry form
An absolute must if you want to build a mailing list. Most people don’t like giving out too much information, so ask only the basics, such as Name and Email Address. Then keep in touch with your customers on a regular basis by sending out information that may be of interest to them. You may even wish to develop your own on-line magazine, for example Constant Contact, MailChimp or BenchMark. There are some fantastic free or inexpensive programs that can handle this.
8. Online Magazine or Newsletter
This is a great marketing tool. Not only does it help you keep in touch with your customers, but provides your website with fresh content. You can set up your Newsletter in two different ways:
- Email subscribers on a regular basis. or
- publish it on your website, or
- both
9. Resources/ Articles
Add value to your business or project. Provide information that is complementary to what you do. For example, if you sell wedding dresses include information about reception venues, wedding planners, wedding cakes, flowers. By adding extra information you encourage more hits and therefore more traffic.
10. About Us
This is a very important page as it tells your customer about who you are and why they should buy your services or products and/or trust your organisation. It can also feature your business hours (if you have a physical shop or office) or when they can speak to someone live. Many companies and charities also include their aims, mission or purpose on this page, details of their staff (photos, biographies, qualifications), recently completed projects.
11. Guarantee
Offer a money-back guarantee. The longer the guarantee, the more effective it will be. It could be 30 days, 60 days, 1 year or lifetime.
12. Survey
Find out what customers think about your website, business service or product.
13. Events Calendar
This can relate to your business or industry. If you are an artist, you can feature dates where and when your art will be displayed or if you are a singer, where you will be performing.
14. Search My Website Feature
Some visitors to your site may not know exactly what they want but if you include a search function on your site, they can look for it very easily. Like search engines, this feature will allow your visitors to type in a word or phrase and then search for it on your site. It’s like having your own mini search engines, only instead of it searching the world wide web, it just searches your website.
15. Return/ Refund Policy
To make your customers feel more comfortable when making a transaction at your website, you should provide then with your return/ refund policy. Ensure it is easy to understand and spelt out step by step.
16. Privacy Policy
Privacy continues to be a major issue for clients and customers. Concerns about how their information is used can be a major barrier when purchasing online. Internet shopping experience is built on trust and privacy is the number one ingredient. Of course, we now have GDPR and so all our websites have a standard Website Privacy Policy which is compliant to GDPR, however you may like to tailor your own version.
17. Site Map
A site map is similar to a 'contents'. It shows visitors how the site is laid out and which sections are where.
18. Copyright Information
Your website should carry a copyright notice to protect its intellectual property. It is generally in the form of 'Copyright © 2020' plus a company name.
19. Links
We can place links to the manufacturers of your products, trade associations or complementary services. When you place links to other businesses, you can request they do the same for you. This will not only bring you more visitors, but may improve your search engine ranking.
20. Media Information
Include any information, articles, photos of your products, staff etc. that have appeared in the media – print, TV, radio or internet.
21. News & Updates
This can include news about your services/products or about your industry, or anything else that is relevant and current.
22. Online Store/ Booking/ Ticket Sales
An online store allows you sell products directly on the internet 24 hours a day 7 days a week. In building an online store it is important to take-in a number of key concepts:
- Make sure that when visitors arrive at your store the navigational mechanisms are simple and effective;
- The actual process of placing the order must be simple;
- Make sure the site accepts common and convenient methods of payment;
- Continually test the store so that you understand your customer’s shopping experience.
23. Blog
A blog is simply a journal that is available on the web. Blogs are typically updated daily or weekly using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog. Blogs are a great tool as they help with:
- Communicating With Your Clients/ Subscribers - Blogs provide a way for you to communicate with your clients, customers or members directly. It is a two-way communication, post a message on your blog and your visitors can easily respond. Staying in touch with your subscribers regularly means you can build long-lasting relationships and develop their trust.
- Search Engine Marketing - Blogs give you an increased presence on major search engines such as Google. If you use Blogger (Google’s Blogging Tool), every message you post creates a new page on Google so in a very short time you could have a lot of pages pointing to your website, bringing you lots of new visitors.
- Media & Public Relations - Blogs are excellent PR tools. You can post your Media Releases and articles and have them picked up by the press media as well as social media.
- Free or Low Cost - There are many Blogs which are free to use. Therefore, they can be integrated within your website or they can be linked via your website as a stand-alone Blog, and there are other ways to make the most of Blog technology.
- Easy to Use - If you can type and press a 'Publish' button, you can use blogging software. The software allows you to follow easy step by step guide and provides great online help.
24. Photo Gallery
Even if you do not wish to sell your products on-line, you may wish to showcase your goods or services in a special photo gallery – show how your products or services are being used by your clients or customers. They say “pictures speak a thousand words” and on your website it is particularly important.
Don’t give your visiting audience a reason to visit your competitor’s website!
