Is Your Website Design Like LAS VEGAS?

By Cultivate | September 4, 2014

Take a minute to really look at your company's existing website design and then ask yourself: Is your website like Vegas? A cool place everyone should visit once, but after that can cross off their "must-see" list.

Maybe your website design is visually stunning, but it’s little more than an online version of your printed brochure. Or, maybe it does super-cool “techie” things, but it fails to get visitors to:

Contact you
Return at a later date
Download free materials
Disclose an email address
Share your content via social media
Purchase your company’s product or service

Perhaps you simply have the wrong people in charge of your website design.

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At Cultivate, we’ve recently stressed the importance of having a responsive website for your business that uses a strong content marketing strategy to convert your site visitors into loyal customers and vociferous brand advocates for your company. While these two components are important for achieving success with your website, so is the make-up of your website design team — an often overlooked detail.

So…

WHO SHOULD BE ON YOUR COMPANY’S WEBSITE DESIGN TEAM?

A web team typically consists of Content Creators, Designers, and Developers.

The Content Creator writes the content.
The Designer visually portrays the information.
The Developer does the actual construction work.

HOW CAN YOUR WEB TEAM CONVERT & MONETIZE YOUR SITE TRAFFIC?

Well, for starters your team needs to be able to answer some important kick-starter questions like:

1. WHO do we want to visit our site?
Your Sales Team can help Designers gain insights into your target audience. Creating buyer personas can ensure that Writers and Designers are in sync about who you’re trying to reach and what motivates your target audience to buy.

2. What do we want our website visitors to DO?
Do you have a specific call to action (CTA) that makes it clear what action you want your visitors to take? (For example, should visitors complete a form? Download an eBook? Sign up for your free newsletter?) You want to make it clear and unmistakable on every page of your site exactly what step you want your readers to take next.

Need help with knowing WHAT you want your prospects to do WHEN? Download our FREE Growth Cycle Marketing white paper to learn how to offer great content at every stage in the buy cycle… and then get your prospects to take action!

3. Do we have a way to TRACK & MEASURE our visitors’ actions?
Strategists and Designers should help the team set analytics goals for your website from the get-go. Good design plays a significant role in how a website or content-marketing piece achieves analytics goals. Google Analytics is a great, user-friendly tool for Designers to start with.

4. Do we have an EDITORIAL CALENDAR of relevant, engaging, and timely topics to post on our website and a smart way to display and organize them?
To create a great website, you’re gonna need a lot of content AND a content strategy. People are hungry for new ideas in your industry. So, be helpful, and use fresh, engaging content marketing and copy writing on your site to show the world that you’re the go-to expert they can trust. Your Content Creator can help by crafting ideas for case studies, interviews, white papers, how-to guides, FAQ pages, and so on. (Yes, we conveniently linked to examples of each of these ideas for you… just click, be inspired, and get started creating your own versions for your website today!)

Your Developer might then suggest housing the items that your Content Creator and Designer developed within a dedicated video library, image gallery, or infographics section on your website (or on a Pinterest board; see our “Land of Infographics” example below). Your visitors and followers MUST find what they're looking for in under 10 seconds or they’ll leave your site. Your Designer and Developer should work together to ensure that your repositories of information beautifully and consistently brand your company and allow visitors find what they need quickly and easily.

5. Do we have a KEYWORD STRATEGY to uphold?
Make sure you’re supporting your SEO efforts by developing relevant, searchable pages. Remember, each content marketing piece you develop needs to include appropriate words to catch the attention of both your prospects and the search engines. Be sure your keywords aren’t hidden inside infographics or used so awkwardly in text that your writing starts to sound stilted. Strike the right balance so that you’re using words that resonate with your readers AND accurately convey your company’s message without sounding contrived just to include certain target keywords.

6. Are we utilizing SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS that are appropriate for our business?
There are 6.1 million reasons your company can’t avoid social media any longer. So get over your fear of not knowing where to begin, and click here for help deciding which social media platform is right for YOUR business. Or read this article to get specific advice on how to use each social platform to generate leads. If you’re already using social media and want have your mind blown with the possibilities of “going social,” check out our article “Social Media: A Virtual Roller Coaster Ride for Marketers” to see how to incorporate online product branding, viral YouTube videos, and strong social engagement on your company’s website via real-life examples. The results will AMAZE you!

For even more ideas on how YOUR web team can build a more successful company website, click on the embedded links throughout this post, download our FREE ebooks, or check out these helpful articles:

Got a specific question for our team of web gurus? Let’s chat in the comments below. Or feel free to connect with us on LinkedIn or Facebook. Our job at Cultivate Communications is to help companies develop and enhance their online presence. That’s just how we roll…