When you're launching your first business website on the internet, you're aiming to get more exposure. But since it's the first time your business is having its own official presence, your expectations should be realistic.
Since you can't expect your site to make money for you in a small amount of your time, it would be better for you to start scaling up your credibility.
Creating a website involves a lot of things. From through research to getting to know the vision of the service. After your website is launched online, the job is not over. In fact, it's just getting started.
So What should your website have? With a lot of websites offering magnitude of different purposes, all have things in common. Most websites that are launched and active have, and not limited to, the following elements.
Navigations
When your website is launched, it must have its own navigation interface already. But as your website grows with more contents, there can be the time when you need a little update on your navigations just to allow visitors to get into more of your pages.
Most websites, if not all, have their navigation bar positioned up at the top of the screen near the logo, up above before contents. With more features and pages, you may need to add more navigation interfaces: such as on the sidebar or at the bottom of the page.
Navigations for a website shouldn't be complicated. They should be as easy to follow as possible, and give the ability for users to get to any pages of your site in just a few clicks/taps.
If your website is having a lot more pages, more than mere navigations can handle, you should consider in using a search feature. The feature should be accessible in most important parts of your website to create a user experience your visitors are needing.
Further reading: The Proper Navigation for a Successful Website
Provide Information
Information here means to describe the things you do. This is where you need to put your marketing efforts to the max in order to get people's attention.
On the web, people rarely do care about you. What they care is the things that you can do for them. In order to appeal, show and tell them why they have consider you as someone to depend on. It can be a great advantage if you can show these all in the first contact.
As with any businesses, people are asking themselves: "How easy is it to do business with you." This is also true when they're visiting your website. In order to ease their thoughts, you need to make sure that all the information they need is provided without them needing to browse blindly. You need to get your message where visitors are most expecting.
Related: Content and Business Popularity
About Page
Your website has the ability to provide all the information it your business does, all with proper navigation(s). When your web visitors are getting interested in you, they might want to know more about you. This is where your About page takes its role.
The About page should describe a summary of you, telling the things you do, and giving visitors an easy way to contact you. As a way to pronounce yourself out loud, the About page is certainly one of the most important page your website should have.
As a way to describe yourself in your own narrative, the About page should have a distinct unique voice to create a personality. The page is essentially a "no sale zone" so don't consider to put any marketing materials in it.
When you're creating your About page, you should first know the reason someone comes to your website in the first place. If your business is having a new portfolio, you can also put their links on the page. Anything you do can also be mentioned in it.
Related: About Us Page for Business Websites
Contents
Your website should have contents. If it already has them, what it needs is more and more contents. Opposed to the marketing pages describing the things you do, contents here is more like additional information to highlight the bests in you.
When developing a website for the web, the main source of web traffic comes from search engines. For that matter, your website should be "search engine friendly".
The main purpose and goal to have a website when considering the ability to get traffic on search engines, is to have the most relevant answer to people's problem. Without a significant amount of contents, there is lesser chance for your search engines to see something in you worth displaying.
Contents here can be any kind. Ranging from mere text-image combinations, videos, slideshow, and so forth. Most websites are putting these all by having a blog. Some others create community forums and membership area. But ways to get more contents is not just limited to those as the possibility depends on what your website is about.
Further reading: Your Business on the Internet: To Blog or not to Blog?
Call-to-Action Feature
The feature to most websites on the web, is something they can't live without. If your website serves a purpose, the method to initiate it should be visible.
The call-to-action (CTA), is more like a button or link, banner, or some type of graphics or text. This prompts visitors to click it and continue down a conversion funnel. CTA is placed on your website's page(s) to drive visitors to become leads.
CTA is what makes the link between the regular content that your potential customer is interested in, and a page with a more high-value offer on it that is relevant and interesting to persuade your visitor to complete a short form.
In short, CTA is a response you want users to complete.
Your website may sell something: whether it's your products/services, or affiliate services, or just ads. Your website has great navigation(s), well-crafted contents, powerful marketing materials, and so on. But all can be useless if you can't convert the traffic for your goal. From purchasing things from you, registering their email, subscribing to your contents to clicking on ads. You need to be able to convert your web visitors to something that benefit you.
CTAs should be visually striking (in colors and sizes) that compels people to click, brief, action-oriented, easy to find, clear and easy to understand.
You should be sure to state exactly what the visitor will get if they click on the CTA and go to the landing page.
Further reading: Creating a High Conversion Landing Page
Social Media Integrations
From Facebook to Twitter, to LinkedIn and Google+. There are numerous of social media networks you can use to make your website and its pages more "social".
There is doubt that social media networks are places with high engagement. By having social media integrations on your website, you will not only get the ability to tap into those audience, but also to get your website to be seen by more people.
Successfully initiating social media marketing can increase your web traffic dramatically. This in turn, can increase the number of successful sales (using call-to-action feature) if your website can convert those potential customer to real buyers.
Further reading: Driving More Social Media's Traffic to Your Website For Better Exposuref