What should you include on your website?
Your website is the heart of your online presence and can make or break whether a site visitor turns into a customer. Making sure your website is easy to navigate and contains the right information is crucial.
Whether you already have a website or you’re just starting the process of building one, you can use this blog as a checklist to make sure your website has everything it needs to be a useful tool for your business.
Keep it simple
Keep the design of your website simple – we can’t say this enough. Poorly designed websites that look messy and are hard to navigate will put off visitors to your site before they’ve even started reading your content.
Don’t make it hard for visitors to find the information they need and make sure your website is accessible and mobile-friendly. Often, there is a temptation to add various visual effects to your website but 9 times out of 10 this just makes it harder for your visitor to navigate and read your website. Remember, you’re designing your site for your visitors and not yourself.
It’s important to ensure that your website looks good no matter what device your website visitor is using. Most website design agencies will create a website that is mobile-friendly as standard but if you’re building your website yourself, make sure that the platform you use has mobile-friendly website templates.
Once published don’t forget to open your website on your own mobile device and click through each page to ensure it looks right, the text and images are readable, and you can easily get to the required information.
The main menu of your website should include:
- Home
- About
- Products/Services
- Gallery/Portfolio (if appropriate)
- Contact
- Book (if appropriate)
Keep your main navigation menu to 7 items or less as too many can overwhelm potential customers and they might miss the information they are looking for. If you have multiple services, for example, if you’re a beauty salon offering different treatments, then put them in a dropdown in the main menu. Use clear labels for your menu items, you want your potential customers to easily find what they are looking for.
Potential customers should land on your website and within 3 clicks arrive at what information they are looking for. For example, if we’re a visitor who has landed on your beauty salon website, we click on services, find the massage prices, and click book. We have only clicked twice on the website and are already booking and paying you money.
With your menus, keep them consistent with other websites. Your Contact and Book options should be on the far righthand side of your menu. If you move these around, it is not only confusing, but your visitors may miss them altogether.
Make sure you also keep your home page link in the main menu. We see people removing it but it’s important to keep it there as people are used to it, it makes it easy to navigate back to your main page and it shows google that it’s an important page.
Contact information
Your contact information must be visible on your website. If your potential customer needs to enquire, request a quote, check availability, etc. You need to make it as easy as possible for them to get in touch with you.
We recommend that you:
- Have your contact information on every page - don’t make it hard for potential customers to find.
- Display every method of contacting you possible, for example, phone number, email, text message and social media.
- Use contact forms on your website, they’re quick and convenient for customers to fill out.
- Show you opening times so potential customers know when they can contact you or visit you if you’re a location-based business.
Booking link
A booking form or link is an efficient call to action that's benefiticial for so many types of business. If your clients can reserve an appointment, book a meeting directly into your calendar or place an inquiry easily - they will.
Here are our top tips for adding booking links to your website:
- Add a booking link to your website’s main menu as this makes it easier for potential customers to book.
- Add a booking button underneath the services and pricing pages as again, this makes it easier for potential customers to book.
- If your booking system lets you embed the bookings onto your website, then do so. This is more visual for your customers and prevents them from having to go to a third-party website.
Design
Having an eye-catching website with a clean design that matches your branding is very important. You have seconds to make an impact on your site visitor and if your website doesn’t look good, they will click off and visit a competitor instead.
- Stay consistent with the colours you use.
- Try and stick to nice pastel or neutral colours which are calming and look great.
- Selecting colours is important as they give off certain signals to people. For example, red is often associated with danger or passion whilst green is associated with nature and tranquillity.
- Don’t use too many colours. Pick 2 or 3 colours and keep to those as too many colours can be confusing for potential customers.
Images
Unique and professional photos can make your business stand out. Make sure they are high resolution, non-blurry and, if possible, avoid stock images. For Gallery or Portfolio pages, it’s also a good idea to show before and after images of your work wherever applicable.
When uploading your images, give them an “Alt tag” - which in website talk for naming your image. Google cannot read your images so name them exactly what they are. For example, if you’re a salon uploading an image of a hot stone massage, name the image “Hot stone massage”.
Make sure that when you upload images, the file size of those images is as small as possible so that it doesn’t take long for the images to load. You can find out more about how to resize your images here.
Show your pricing
Asking how much things are can be a daunting task so displaying your pricing makes it easy for the potential customer to see. It also saves you time giving out prices each time for people to say “No”.
If you don’t want to commit to a price or if the price of your work can vary, consider offering a price range or the option to request a free quote.
Content
Content is truly the bread and butter of your website. Good content can convert your site visitors into customers as well as help you get discovered on Google.
Check your content regularly
Good content requires regular work. You need to review your content regularly and make sure it is up to date. If you want your website to look good with pictures but without words, it won’t rank on Google.
It’s also essential to make sure everything is up to date; this includes content for blogs you’ve written. For example, if you change your prices, make sure this is reflected across your website. This is also a good time to ensure that all your links are working correctly and you’re not getting any 404 errors.
Headings
Decide what you want to rank for and what your customers would search to find you and make that the H1 heading of your home page. For example, if you’re a beauty salon in Preston you would make the heading of your home page “[Your Salon’s Name] - Beauty Salon in Preston”.
Each main service should have its own page so it can be found on Google, for example, you can have a massage page, facial page, nails page, etc. These pages can then show on Google for somebody looking for those exact services, helping increase traffic on your website.
Testimonials and reviews
Even if you say you have the best service in your location, your potential customer needs proof and reviews/testimonials provide this. Put them on your website across as many pages as possible. They add a human element and when buying, people will nearly always read reviews.
Blogging
Blogging is a great way of keeping your website updated with fresh content, improving your website’s Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), and establishing yourself as an authority within your field.
Try and blog at least once per month. Talk about new products or services, talk about topics within your industry, offer updates about your business and answer questions that your customers may have.
Conclusion
Whilst having a website for your business is a great step forward, it won’t be effective if you publish it without putting thought into your design and content. If you want your website to get results, it must be eye-catching and easy for your customers to use. Use this blog as a checklist and you’ll be on your way to having a website that delivers results.
At Pagio, we make it easy to create a website. We have a range of customisable website templates, and our drag-and-drop website builder is easy to use with no website design experience or coding knowledge required. If you still don’t feel confident or just lack the time to build a website, we also offer a Free Website Set Up option and tailored website design packages.
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