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Follow UsShashank Mehrotra, Director, Strategy & Business Development at Directi & Business Head, BigRock
A website is the most powerful marketing tool for a business, especially in a country like India where 81 million people surf the Internet scouting for companies to purchase products and be partner with. Website is the preferred destination for most people to land up on and seek information about a company, products and services. As a website owner, you have enough to do to make sure it works --convey brand promise, establish credibility and brings business. Let's have a look at the essential components that a portal should be beefed up with.
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1. Crisp Headline
When a visitor lands on your website, next to visual elements, what grabs his attention is the headlines. So, you need to ensure that all headlines are catchy and clear. Headlines should be short and crisp and should convey your brand's promise. It should immediately show them a good reason to do business with your company, and should differentiate your company from all your competitors.
2. Powerful Website Copy
The content is still the king. All stories and product descriptions should be well scripted, tempting enough for the prospective customers to consider buying. Content not only provides information but also flaunts your company's positioning. Show off the best parts of your brand by highlighting unique content that is powerful. You should have something that will attract a potential customer and lure him further into your site. To keep your audience hooked, be sure to give that 'wow' factor with an attractive layout as well.
3. Intuitive Navigation
Poor navigation drives away visitors from a site. Visitors want what they look for quickly and easily. You should ensure that your site is easy to use for visitors to get a good experience and come back time and again. Using intuitive navigation techniques greatly improves the usability of your web site, and therefore user satisfaction and return rates. You should have a site-map that is instantly understandable to visitors to your web site. Also, across the sub-page, try and keep the menus at the same location and the same style. This reduces a visitor's frustration in figuring out how to navigate to a page in your site.
4. Call to Action
Along with a great product/service description, a call-to-action button leading to the pricing page is essential for converting potential customers into buyers or subscribers. Users should be able to easily navigate through a clear-cut path designed, so consumers are directed to a purchase point. So, it's important that your call-to-action is inescapable. If your website is not an e-commerce site and your intention is not to sell products and services, you could have a visitor information form to get data about visitors, their comments and feedback. This way, you'll at least have a way of making your two-way engagement with your website visitors.
5. SEO Friendly
Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing are two of the most necessary things to incorporate on your site. These two factors work together --the keywords on your site tell search engines what your site is about, and the back-links (number of mentions your website has on other websites) to your site tell them how important your site is. The combination of the two factors determines your relevance. And relevance is, of course, what the search engines are all about. You should make sure that everything you are posting online, is adding up to increase your likeability to show up on Google search when one looks for you. You can use free keyword tool such as 'Google keyword tool' or paid tools such as 'overture' to understand the relevant keywords related to your brand and the amount of competition present online, selling a similar set of products as your website.
6. Social Media Plugs
Social networking have become fairly popular in India. The likes of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube have the world by storm. Each of these social networks cater to a different audience. You should research, find out the presence of your target audience and engage with them there. The web-savvy audience today want to connect with your brand and converse with you. You surely don't want to miss out on this before your competitor taps in.
7. Blog
As an SMB, there is no better way to establish a point of difference, become known for thought leadership or consistently attract links and attention than by putting up a blog on your site and using it to share information and initiate conversations. Your blog is your company voice and this gives your company a persona. You can do a lot with your blog: respond to industry events, comment on the new policies, put up your customer's testimonials, pictures, and your company's growth trends and much more
8. Customer Testimonials
Today customers tend to like to believe other customers more than believing a company boasting about their products and customers. Using customer testimonials on your reseller web page is a great way to turn a prospective client into an actual client. Testimonials reinforce the fact you deliver what you promise. Glowing reviews could even help you command a premium for your products or services as they provide social proof your product or service is worth having. Make sure you have a fine-tuned mechanism to collect fresh testimonials. It will help you not only get new customers but also help you forge partnerships.
9. Video
Indians love to watch videos as against reading text. And for this very reason, YouTube is the second most popular search engine behind Google. Statistics show that visitors spend lot of time watching videos. You get a lot of time to communicate with your audience why they should do business with you, the benefits they'll derive by conducting business with you, etc. If you're not allowed to stream videos on your website, put them up on a corporate channel on YouTube and embed the links on your website.
10. About Us page
From the 'About Us' page, people want to know about the company and the people they're dealing with. A brief overview of the company's brand promise should be followed by a brief introduction to the company's key spokespeople. Here you can add professional details about the employees experience and also have a one liner about their personal likes and hobbies. The idea is to acquaint your website visitors with the people behind the company. This adds to the credibility and likeability that prospective customers and partners will have for you and your company.