If you have a business website that you want to promote, you should embrace marketing-led web design. This will ensure that your website is drawing in new users, and it will also help to retain current users.
Here are the six fundamentals of marketing-led web design.
Set marketing goals
If you want your website to succeed, you need to set clear marketing goals. Maybe you want users to buy items, or maybe you want them to sign up to your newsletter; either way you need to set a clear goal. This will make it easier for users to understand what they should be doing on your website.
Think about the user experience
Always consider the user experience when designing a website. After all, if your website is slow to load or hard to navigate, it is very unlikely that users will stay on your website. In fact, it is fairly likely that they will leave your website and head to a competitor.
Have a content marketing strategy
Content is an essential part of marketing, so you should make sure that you have a strong content strategy; make sure you publish at least a few blog posts a month that are useful and relevant to your users.
If you are looking for a Yorkshire web design company who can help you create a content marketing strategy, check out Yorkshire Web Designer Etempa to find out more.
Use analytics
You should also use analytic tools (such as Google Analytics) to check that your marketing strategies are working. Check out the organic users, as well as the length of time users spend on your website to determine how effective your marketing is.
Make sure your website is SEO optimised
If you want to promote your website online, it must be optimised for search engines. This means that your website will appear higher on the search results page, so more users will find it. If you don’t know much about SEO, don’t worry, you can hire an experienced Yorkshire web design company to help you.
Consider customer service
Customer service is also a very important part of online marketing. After all, your customers are your main audience, so you should make sure that it is possible for customers to leave feedback and ask questions. This will make it easier for you to improve your website.
Why a blog belongs in the plan
A regularly updated blog is one of the most useful parts of a marketing-led website. Fresh content gives search engines a reason to rank the site higher, and better visibility brings more visitors, which can lift enquiries and sales. It also gives a business a place to share what it knows. Well researched, informative posts show expertise, build credibility and help visitors trust the people behind the site.
A blog can steer buying decisions too. Useful content draws readers in and then guides them towards the relevant product or service pages, which helps conversion rates. It also sits at the centre of wider content marketing. One solid post can be reworked into an infographic, a short video or a run of social media posts, so the effort put into writing it keeps paying back across other channels. Planning the blog alongside the site’s structure, rather than adding it later, makes all of this easier to achieve.
Building SEO into the design
A marketing-led site needs to be found, and search engine optimisation is one of the best ways to bring in targeted visitors. Start with keyword research so your content uses the phrases customers actually search for, such as a type of business plus a town. Free keyword tools help with this. Do not overdo it, though. Stuffing pages with keywords reads badly and can lead to search engine penalties.
Titles are one of the main on-page ranking factors, so include key phrases in them. Meta descriptions do not affect rankings directly, but they are your chance to tell searchers why they should click.
When linking between your own pages, use descriptive anchor text rather than “click here”. A link reading “see the menu at our vegan restaurant” tells search engines far more than “view our menu here”. Above all, make the site easy to use and fill it with content people want to read and share, because rankings only matter if visitors stay.
Common website design mistakes to avoid
Some design choices quietly undermine a site’s marketing by hurting rankings or frustrating visitors. Every page needs a title, kept to around 66 characters, because search engines use it to understand and rank the page. Keywords should match what people search for, so a shop selling bikes in Manchester should target “bikes in Manchester” rather than “good bikes”.
Avoid putting key information in PDFs, which are hard to search and copy on screen. Steer clear of designs that look like adverts, such as banners, pop-ups and flashing text, since users tend to ignore or resent them. Unless you are doing a full overhaul, keep layout and navigation consistent, as constant changes put people off.
Make visited links change colour so people can see where they have been. Break text into short chunks rather than solid blocks, let users enlarge the font, and make sure the site answers the questions visitors arrive with. If they cannot find answers, they will leave.