Building A Business Website That Works

Does your website have a job description?

Before you build a new website (or revamp an old one), it’s vital that you take time to consider what you need your site to do for your business.  I find the easiest way to do this is to sit down with a piece of paper and list all the different ways in which your site can help your business. It’s a bit like writing a job description for a new member of staff!

While the exact list will vary a little depending on the nature of your business, the one you come up with should contain most, if not all, of the following outcomes:

• Promote your business brand to your target market
• Help differentiate you from your competitors
• Display your products and/or outline your services to customers
• Educate your target market (articles/blog posts)
• Build your reputation 
• Establish trust in the mind of potential consumers (credibility)
• Make it easy for people to buy your products online (online shop)
• Generate enquiries for follow-up (lead generation)
• Generate email list signups (list building)

It’s only when you step back and look at everything your website needs to do, that you realise just how important it is for your business.

G Meikle, The Web Copy Doctor

Creating a business website is a team effort

Creating a website that does all of these things well takes time, expertise and a bit of money.  You’ll need someone to design the look and feel of the site, a coder to build the site, and a copywriter to create clear, concise, compelling content.

It may be tempting to skimp on professional help but it usually works out more expensive in the long run.

Poor content costs you money, professional content makes you money!

Gavin Meikle

Poor quality content repels prospective customers

An amateur website may look pretty,  but the content behind the design could be the online equivalent of a massive wall between you and your target clients.  The words on your website need to be optimised for human readers as well as search engine spiders. 

• Badly written websites don’t rank well on Google Search which means that potential clients never even get as far as discovering your business.
• Spelling errors, grammatical mistakes and typos undermine your brand’s credibility  in the eyes of potential customers
• Unexplained jargon can trigger visitors to leave your site prematurely
• Bad navigation makes it hard for visitors to find what they are looking for

What’s wrong with copying my competitors?

You’d be surprised how many small business websites contain large chunks of content copied wholesale from someone else’s site. It may seem like a quick and easy way to populate your new site, but it is never a good idea.   Plagiarism, as this practice is known, is easily detected and is punished harshly by Google.

Many businesses make this mistake unknowingly because they use one of the many low-cost website-builder sites. These platforms claim to make your life easier by providing pre-written website content based on your industry.  Adopting this approach may seem attractive, but you are almost certainly doing your business more harm than good. 

Paying an expert to write your content will save you time and money

Many of my clients came to me after trying and failing to write their website content themselves.  They were surprised to discover that writing compelling content for the web was more time-consuming and challenging than they expected. 

Today, most people wouldn’t try to service their own car or repair their own computer.  Why?  Because they understand that these tasks require specialist knowledge and tools. So, it’s no surprise that more and more people are hiring
a professional content creator. They quickly discover that doing so brings a host of valuable benefits such as:

• Freeing up time for other important tasks that you are better suited to achieve
• Delivers quality copy that is free from embarrassing mistakes,  and generates many more leads, enquiries and sales. 
• Delivers content that is Search Engine Optimised to generate more visitors
• Is plagiarism checked to protect your rankings and your reputation

In conclusion

I hope you found this article relevant, interesting and accessible. I would love you to contact me to talk about what I could do for your website, my primary objective is to provide you with useful information that will help you to build a better website.

All I ask in return is that you share this post with your network and that you leave a comment below.