You might be asking yourself, "Do I need a website for my business?" if your company has made it this far without one. If my company is already successful without one, what's the point? Below are the top features which is required in your website.
Five Most Important Website Features
- Homepage Design
- Site Footer
- This page
- Internal Web Pages
- Backend Admin
Homepage Features of Your Website
Most first impressions come from the home page. This is the first impression a visitor gets of you and your business. Do not mince your words. Ensure your communication is concise, effective and easy to read for your users.
Domain Name
Domain names serve as the address where visitors to your website can locate you or search for you when looking up related terms online. They're an essential first step when creating any site; with one, there's a point.
Your domain registration should be easy for visitors to pronounce and spell so they can find you easily. Be creative to come up with unique names if your initial selection has already been taken; otherwise, you must either register another one yourself or purchase it from someone else.
Name of the Company
Your company's name should be prominently displayed on the home page to reassure visitors that they have found the site they are looking for. Your company's name should be easily accessible without users having to scroll.
Search Bar
Users may know what they are looking for on your website but need help finding it. A search box on your site's homepage and all other pages allow users to control their experience.
Logo
The logos must also be prominently displayed on your homepage. Logos are easy-to-remember graphics. They create an association between the company name and the image in the brain of a potential customer. They may need to remember the name of your business, but they will recognize it by its logo.
Description
Include a short tagline or description near your company's logo or name. It is particularly important for smaller companies whose products could be more easily understandable. For first-time customers, a short sentence that describes who you are will help them get oriented.
Navigation Bar
A navigation bar can be placed on your page's left or right side. This will allow users to easily navigate the site to find the products and information they seek.
CTAs
CTAs, or calls to action, are anything from "create an account" to "book a demonstration" to "get onto our mailing list". It is a persuasive plea for users to take action that will lead to later contact and often comes with some incentive.
Pictures
You should have a header or body image on your website to give visitors a visual. Visuals for your website can include ads for your spring collection or graphics designed for it. Images are more effective at retaining attention than a large amount of text. Any visual medium is preferable to a single page of text.
External Links
It's not enough to get visitors to your website. Use your homepage as a way to encourage visitors to explore other areas of the website development. Promote spring fashions or link to blog articles. Internal product links encourage users to remain on your site longer. This increases their chances of becoming a client.
Testimonials
Include testimonials or quotes from users or past clients on your homepage, using review sites for data. If there are not enough available reviews yet, reach out directly and ask customers to submit reviews if necessary - reaching out directly to individuals may result in contributing some positive words to your testimonials section.
Live Chat
More and more websites are using live chat to interact with visitors. This allows them to provide excellent customer service. When using live chat, prompt users to start a conversation on your homepage or internal links after a specified time.
Subscriber Opt-In
The homepage is often the ideal location to begin. Although newsletter forms may exist elsewhere on a site, their most efficient placement is on the homepage. Most organizations use popups to encourage visitors to subscribe by offering incentives like coupons for subscribing. Visitors will see this newsletter when hovering their cursor over "X", prompting them to immediately act before closing out a page altogether.
Site Footer Features
Footer links are located at the bottom of each page. They help users navigate to site pages that they find popular.
Tabs and Options
You should include a list of links at the bottom of every page and your homepage. This will help visitors navigate to places they are most likely to visit. These site locations include the blog, news stories, "about" pages, career opportunities, FAQs, customer service, and any other relevant links to the users' experience.
Social Media Icons
Social media marketing is a powerful tool. Include social media icons in the footer of your homepage or at the bottom of each page to encourage visitors to visit Twitter and Facebook.
Site About Page Features
A page about us allows visitors to find out more about the organization. You can include many of these components on your homepage. However, you can create a dedicated page for users to learn more about the company. It is a good place to use brand storytelling.
You Can Map Your Business
Maps and addresses help users find your store or office. It helps users to know where you are. Users can also search for a larger business with many storefronts to locate the nearest location. Smaller businesses only need to list the addresses they have.
Business Hours
Include this information on your About page if you only have an actual storefront or are available at specific times. It's important to list your hours so people can know when you are most likely to respond or handle returns.
Don't Hesitate To Get In Touch With Us For More Information
Users can contact you using your contact information. Add a contact number and, if possible, a help or informative email address to your "about" page. Anyone who wants to ask questions about your service or product or has problems with it can contact you quickly.
Contact Form
Contact forms are another tool to make your business available. Contact forms collect an individual's data and allow them to voice concerns in a separate message box.
Biography
Visitors will better understand your company and founders if you provide a biography. They want to feel comfortable and confident about their investment of time and money. Your About page can be brightened with a company bio with personal stories and anecdotes.
Your Business Website Inner Pages: Other Features
Other internal affiliate links will depend on the products you sell and how you drive traffic. Here are some examples and advanced features that you would need to add to a new website to make it successful and easy to navigate.
Team/Careers
It's a great marketing tool for showing visitors what your team is like, who they are, and how you might work together if you apply.
Teamwork and Employees
These pages list employees by job titles, such as marketing, sales or research. The pages will include team or headshot photos with employee names and titles. The teams will differ depending on your organizational structure and the types of teams that you have.
Bios of Employees
The team biographies will show how diverse your company is in terms of their backgrounds, interests and ways of thinking. Include short biographies of your employees to give them a chance for their personal impact on visitors to your website.
The Media
Many companies include interviews of real employees in their video components for team pages or career pages. It's a great piece of marketing material for your next hiring drive. Videos can also help improve your SERP ranking.
Features Page
If you are a SaaS provider, you'll want to add a feature page to let visitors know how your company stands out from the competition.
Functionality
It is just a listing of the features that your product offers as extra functionality in ecommerce functionality. What is it capable of for professionals? Organize features by the categories to which they belong. List your product under the contact management category if it can organize and update customer information.
Integrating the Internet
The users are constantly wondering whether a software tool will work with their tools. By including integrations in the features section, you can answer these questions earlier and increase the traffic on your site by including popular tools.
Case Studies
Visitors can learn how your service or product has helped previous customers. The data in case studies are unbiased, and the results support the claims. How to create a case study to convert visitors to your website into qualified leads.
Blog
A blog is a great tool for organizations that want to attract traffic through original content or provide updates regularly through posts. A blog can be a great way to attract attention, even if you are not a regular blogger.
Organization
It is important to organize blogs in the right way. Visitors and readers should understand how you have organized your blog and where they can go for the most relevant content.
Use The Blog Search Function To Find Out More About A Particular Blog
As we mentioned earlier, having a search box on each page can be very useful, and it is especially important to have one for your blog since matching keywords will help your readers find content.
Author Pages
Sometimes readers want to gain more information on professionals writing blog posts, so adding a link in each employee bio to the byline allows readers to visit that writer's bio page directly and become acquainted. It helps familiarize readers with specific writers while at the same time building the credibility of authors with relevant experience.
Comment
Did blogs mean to start a conversation? Include a comment section following your blog to allow readers to engage in a discussion similar forum. This shows just how engaging and interesting the content of your blog is.
Blog Internal Links
Likely, a blog visitor attracted to your site will also be interested in another blog with similar features. Use this chance to add a list or bar of content recommendations that keep visitors on your website longer.
Knowledge Base (or FAQ)
The pages on these sites help users find the answers to previous questions. It reduces the need for your team to answer questions repeatedly while also making visitors more confident.
Question and Answers
Questions form the cornerstone of any forum. When someone poses a query, others can respond with answers - creating an interactive community where knowledge can be exchanged freely. You could organize questions and answers within topics, just as with blogs - making these also searchable to ensure maximum usage
Download Documents And Guides
Customers also benefit from the documentation of every company. Make sure to include customer-facing documents in your knowledge base.
Infographics
Infographics can explain complex concepts in small pictures. Include infographics in your knowledge base that describe processes and data.
Read More: Everything To Know About A Website Builder
The Backend Functionality Of A Business Website
Thus far, our discussions have focused heavily on customers. While that can help create an incredible user experience, what are some key considerations in creating an optimal control room experience?
Our ultimate guide to business websites covers this topic more in-depth; however, this checklist will come in handy for an easier start.
CMS Tool
Content management systems (CMSs) help you organize and maintain all the content on your site. You can still store a blog post in the CMS if it is removed after an event, holiday or other related occasion.
There are hundreds of add-ons available for many CMS platforms. Many popular Arion ERP plugins can be used for online stores.
Search Engine Optimization Tool
Software for SEO tools with a wide range of excellent options for personal websites help you write content to attract the maximum number of visitors. The keyword optimization process helps you use the search terms that other people enter to direct them to your site.
Site Analysis
You can use analytics tools to understand how many people visit your website and for how long. It's a great way to analyze the success of a certain page or piece of content and change strategies that need to be fixed.
Website Hosting
Websites cannot operate without a web host, just as a custom domain can't function. You don't need a hosting service with a good hosting plan for unlimited products if you use a website creator. The website builder will host your site; you do not have to find one externally.
The Content Descriptions
Your website should allow you to update the title and meta description of the content. It is a good way to improve SEO, as certain keywords in the meta-description will help your website appear on certain search engines.
Why You Should Have A Business Website
A Website Makes You Look Professional
Consumers nowadays perceive businesses with simple sites to be more credible. You can use yours to showcase any awards or professional certifications you hold.
An email account on a website allows users to create personalized addresses adding an air of professionalism to email correspondence - especially useful if using personal accounts for business correspondence; many email marketing software no longer allows sending from personal addresses, and to use all the capabilities of email, it requires professional emails addresses to leverage its potential fully.
Google Can Help You Attract More Customers To Your Website
Every business relies on new customer acquisition. One effective strategy to increase visibility on Google is by expanding social network posts through it. At the same time, simple sites give access to various tools and SEO strategies that could get your company onto its front page.
Search engine optimization may seem complex at first, but it's quite straightforward in practice. Use keyword research tools to enter terms relevant to your company into them; determine which are receiving the most Google traffic; create content around these phrases using SEO plugins as needed, and each piece should contain at least one specific keyword focus for ranking purposes - making your site rank for more keywords with each piece added. No prior training is necessary either.
Your Products Or Services Can Be Displayed
Displaying high-quality photographs will show prospective clients what to expect when working with you, such as how the UK restaurant Blackhouse did it with their site. Check out how Blackhouse achieved this on theirs.
Use your website design and featured images to enable visitors to imagine what the location looks like; this tactic works especially well if your brand relates strongly with it, such as in the case of the Canadian restaurants.
Publishing information on your website about your services and products to attract the appropriate customers is another effective strategy for attracting clients who make up your target market. Restaurant owners may include gluten-free offerings on the menu so those living with conditions such as Celiac disease may enjoy your meals too.
Your Website Can Feature Your Most Positive Reviews
Social proof can be achieved by featuring your most positive reviews or testimonials prominently on your website, including personal accounts from customers like those shared here by a non-profit. Your best reviews can also serve as permanent archives if published on your own site, even if third-party platforms cease operation in the future.
Websites can help customers contact you
Your website can be a good place for potential clients to find your contact details. Your contact details can be published in the header or footer of every page. Snakes and Lattes is a small board game café chain that has put the phone numbers of all four locations on its website. The latest website builders make it simple to build a form that protects your email address from spam.
Google Maps Can Be Integrated Into Your Website To Help People Find You
You can embed maps into content on a website. A map is embedded on the home page of some businesses.
A map embedded in the website makes it easier for those who spend little time in your locality to locate your business. It's especially useful if your company hosts events that bring in people who would not otherwise visit the area.
Your Website Establishes Your Place In Your Industry
By 2025, 81% of consumers will conduct product research online before purchasing online. If your competitors possess websites but you do not, they will become the initial point of contact between customers and product/service providers. Launch a website to showcase your company, industry role and customer relationships.
It Is Now Easier Than Ever To Manage And Create A Website
Arion ERP, a modern website builder, makes creating a mobile-friendly and attractive site simple with mobile optimization along with good bounce rate. Arion ERP, the most popular platform for creating a site, now has a block-based editor. It has always been challenging to design a functional and aesthetically pleasing website.
Your Success Is Assured With A Website
By January 2025, internet usage will hit 59.57% of global Internet users - approximately 4.66 billion individuals or 59.57%. Depending on country-specific considerations, this could reach over 90%; for instance, in America alone.
Your business would become invisible if it did not invest in its online presence. In an ever-more digital environment, to remain competitive and remain relevant in an increasingly digital marketplace, having a website is crucial for remaining visible and competitive.
All Of These Advantages Are Available Without Having To Spend A Lot
Building websites has never been cheaper or simpler, with non-technical and DIY techniques making the task easy enough for beginners to create one for under $100/year.
Arion ERP is free for basic usage and the most widely-used software used to develop websites, with cheap hosting service options in templates making setting up and running an affordable site easy.
You Can Also Find Out More About The Conclusion Of This Article
At first, start simple; don't get bogged down with too many details at the outset. These suggestions should get your site on track toward becoming beautiful, useful, and successful; from there on out, you can think about web design trends and user experience to bring life to its most essential features.
Website development should focus on connecting with as many potential customers as possible and ensuring they find what they're searching for.
Contacting one of the top website builders software solution that could solve all your web needs.