In a day and age when anyone can be a business owner, having an impressive online presence can help set you apart from your competition. You may not need a degree from business management school to be successful (although it’s usually helpful), but you do need a website. As your website can be the first impression your ideal client has of you, you need to make sure it is representative of you and your company.
Simple Design
Your site design should be strong enough to make an impression, but simple enough not to confuse visitors. The design needs to be representative of you and your company, and it also needs to be consistent in terms of the fonts, colors, and graphics that you use. Try to limit the number of bright colors, flashy lettering, or blinking graphics you have on your site as these can be distracting from the actual content on your site. Web design platforms like SquareSpace, Wix, and WordPress make designing your own site easy, but hiring a professional will increase your likelihood of success. And logo making programs like Logojoy produce amazing branding for a fraction of what you’d pay for a human designer.
Ease of Use
Your website needs to be easy to navigate. If your ideal client comes across your website but can’t navigate through different sections or has to get through multiple pop ups, chances are that they will leave your site before getting the chance to see what you have to offer. Consider that many people these days use smart phones and tablets more than home computers or laptops, so when creating a website make sure that the design has mobile compatibility.
Quality Content
Design is important to attract people to your site, however, if you don’t have quality content, they won’t be coming back. You need to have a clear purpose to your site, and anything put on that site needs to help serve that purpose. Readers and potential customers will return to your site often if they know they can get quality information on a regular basis. Quality content will also work to improve your search engine optimization through Google (marketing strategy). This, in turn, will help more people find your site, driving more traffic and attracting more potential customers.
Contact Information
The purpose of attracting potential customers through your website is so that they can hire you or utilize the services you worked so hard developing in school. You need to make sure to have your contact information readily available. This is best achieved through having a clear “Contact Me” section as a heading or subheading on your website. If someone can’t find your contact information, they probably won’t spend too much time trying to find it. Instead, they’ll move on to your competition — or at least someone they can contact easier.
Having a strong internet marketing strategy starts with a well-developed website, so make sure it’s a great one!
