Website Checklist for Businesses in 2020

A website serves as the foundation of your digital marketing strategy. It helps potential customers find your business, gain trust, move through the buying process and come back for more. But in order for any of that to happen, you need to ensure that the right elements are in place.

Let’s take a look at some essentials to get your website ready for the new decade.

Getting Started

Quality Content: Posting valuable, relevant and informative articles on a regular basis is key to establishing credibility and improving your search engine rankings.

SEO Strategy: Consider partnering up with an SEO team to ensure that your website ranks high in search results and the user experience is up-to-standard. SEO experts BigSurfDigital can help you outrank the competition by bringing more targeted traffic to your site. They also perform on-page and off-page optimisation as well as providing monthly reports.

Key Pages: Following are the pages your website needs to have before going online.

Homepage

This is what people see first. It needs to load fast (in less than two seconds) and look professional. Visitors should be able to immediately identify who you are and what you do. A great homepage is also eye-catching without being busy.

Aim to present key details as clearly and concisely as possible. Aside from communicating value, your homepage should also make it easy for users to take the next step, which is done with a well-placed call-to-action. This is an ideal place to include some social proof (testimonials, case studies, etc.) to immediately build trust with visitors.

About

Potential customers will want to know more about your business if they’re unfamiliar with it. The about page can inform them with a brief summary of what your company does and what sets you apart from the competition. It’s a good idea to talk about the history of your brand as well.

Be sure to give your business a face by including biographies and pictures of everyone who’s part of it. You can also list any awards or achievements here.

Contact

Make it easy for customers to get in touch with you by listing all of your available communication channels and their details. It’s worth noting that key contact information should be present in the footer of any page on your website where possible. Make use of a contact form to avoid the risk of being spammed.

Products/Services

These pages can provide a summary of your products or services before outlining them. Longer lists are best divided into sections, with landing pages where visitors can learn more about a particular product/service. Use bullet points to quickly and clearly communicate the benefits of your offer and what makes it the best of its kind.

Knowledge Base

A knowledge base or FAQ page is valuable for several reasons.

One of the main advantages of having a section with answers to common questions is the load it takes off of customer support, which will become increasingly evident as your sales grow. This is also a great place to use call-to-actions to persuade readers into making a purchase. Ultimately, it should make customers feel safe about doing business with you.

Blog

While not a page per se, a blog compiles all of your posts into a list in reverse chronological order. Used right, it can serve as an extremely potent marketing tool. Quality content has countless benefits for your business, so investing in the creation of a great blog that’s filled with informative and relevant posts is a good idea.

Additional Pages

Here are a few more pages to make sure are on your website:

  • Testimonials/Reviews: Establish trust by having a page that contains testimonials or reviews from previous customers. Remember to add a face and name to each entry so that they appear authentic.
  • News Page: This is where you can post links to commercial accomplishments that showcase your involvement in your industry or community. Include articles that are written about your company and press releases.
  • Privacy Policy: Don’t put your website online without having a page that informs visitors about what you do with their data and whether or not it’ll be shared with third parties.
  • Terms and Conditions: Similarly, this page is a must as it outlines the “rules” that anyone who uses your website must abide by. It should also have information about local and copyright laws.
  • Sitemap: These come in two formats: XML sitemaps, which are made for search engines, and HTML sitemaps, which serve as an index for human visitors that lists all of the pages on your site.
  • Page not Found: Also called an “error 404” page, this is where users are directed when a page was moved or deleted.

Get these elements in place and your website will be set for success. Remember to focus on quality and take the time to provide the best possible experience for your visitors.