TrueInsight Newsletter

An E for Effective:
The Top Ten Signs Your Website Makes the Grade

By now, it goes without saying that a good website means good business. However, thousands of business sites still miss the mark.

But what separates a good website from an ok one—or worse, an ineffective one? Here at TruePresence, we define an effective website as:

One that presents a positive and professional image, is useful and informative, and gives the user a reason to interact, transact, and return.

Does your business’s site live up to our definition? Take a look at our checklist of the top 10 hallmarks of an effective website and find out.

10. Your Website is Professionally Built
When it comes to building their company website, too many businesses go with the old “Slap Something Up There” approach. Letting your 17-year-old computer whiz nephew build your site might save money in the short term, but the result is very unlikely to achieve any business goals.? Think of it this way; if you wanted to build a house, would you let your nephew build it simply because he happens to own a nail gun?

There are numerous tools on the market that can be used to build websites, however a smart business is one that leaves the heavy lifting to a professional web designer and developer.

9. You Talk to Your Customers—Not Yourself
Remember: you are not your target audience. A good business website is built from the perspective of the customer and talks to them in their language. Avoid the temptation to use industry jargon or drone on and on about yourself. Talk instead about how the customer can benefit from doing business with you.

8. You’re Ready for Search Engines
Even if you don't undergo an elaborate search engine optimization process, your site should still be built with the search engines in mind. With the help of web professionals, start by determining what keywords your audience is searching for, (which may include concepts beyond the obvious) and build content around them. Keep in mind that most people search for a business category, not a company name. Be sure to also submit your site to all the relevant search engines, if you haven't already done so.

7. You Put Function Before Flashiness
Do your site’s features enhance the customer’s ability to interact with your company—or are some of them just there for the “cool” factor? In the rush to create a standout website, companies often make the mistake of loading it with bells and whistles that serve little purpose. Though they may look impressive, in reality they only frustrate visitors with slow load times and poor navigation. With business sites, less is more.

6. The “Latest News” is Still Late-Breaking
Fresh content adds relevance and credibility to your site—so kudos if you keep your site’s newsroom up to date. But if your latest news item dates back to the Clinton administration, you may want to reexamine whether having a newsroom is worth it. Stale content gives the impression of a stale business. If the customer arrives to see nothing’s been updated in a month, a year, or more, they may assume your company has been idle for the same amount of time.

5. Information is Easy to Locate
With 80 million websites competing for increasingly short attention spans, your site must be user friendly. Navigating your site should be easy and intuitive – items and information should be located where a visitor would think they would be located. Everything should be clearly labeled and easy to find.

4. You’ve Stayed True to Your Brand
Whether you are a local business or a global corporation, your website should help build and extend your brand. Be yourself online and remain true to your principles. If your brand is all about customer service, for example, make it easy to contact and interact with support teams through the website. Although it seems simple and obvious, many businesses forget this fact or try to use their website to be something they’re not.

3. You’re Proactively Generating Site Traffic
Smart marketers know that the days of “build it and they will come” are over. They’re using search marketing to generate highly qualified traffic to their site, and email marketing to keep current customers coming back to their site for new specials and updates.

2. Your Site Has Defined Objectives
The best sites are those that are created with specific business objectives in mind, before the first pixels are ever put into place. I want my site to…increase ticket sales; save us time and money on customer service.; educate prospective patients on my different services. Clear objectives create smarter-built, more successful sites.

1. There is a Clear Call to Action!
Converting visitors into customers—that’s the universal objective for every business website. Your site should make it incredibly easy for your visitors to do business with you. This doesn’t have to be complicated; at the very least, make sure your business’s contact information (address, phone number, email address) and contact us form are accessible from every page of your site. But simple touches like a printable coupon, a newsletter sign-up form, or a downloadable white paper are also great conversion vehicles. The Internet is a communication vehicle; make sure your site sparks an ongoing conversation.