In the online marketing world products or services are marketed mainly through websites, so it is important to add high value to your website or else it may be difficult to sell or market your products properly. It’s almost like having a shop covered with four walls without having any signboard but having a large stock of great products inside!
Whether you are here to create a new website or finding ways to add more value to your existing website, this tutorial will guide you through each step to attain your goal to find more visitors and achieve more conversions.
1. Secured Site
Https means all communications or data passed between your browser and the website are encrypted. This can be identified by looking at the browser address bar. A padlock and https indicate that the site is secured. HTTP means Hyper Text Transfer Protocol and an additional “S” at the end means “Secured”:
The secured site is a must if your site collects sensitive data such as credit cards, shopping cart sites where payments can be made, sites which collect personal information.
Google announced that even static HTTP websites will be flagged and it will show “Not Secure” in the URL bar of chrome browser.
To convert a site from http to https, you need to contact your hosting provider requesting to issue a Secure Certificate & this includes cost which should be renewed every year.
2. Logo
A Logo is a symbol or sign used to recognize a company or organization and placed beside the name of the company. A logo is the brand identity of a company.
In the modern business & corporate world, the importance of having an attractive & meaningful logo is very crucial. A logo creates a major impact on how your customer will perceive your brand. A logo design should be memorable and it should reflect the culture of the company. A creative and careful combination of colors, shapes, and even texts are included in the creation of a beautiful & professionally looking logo.
Note that once a logo is created the same logo should be used across all channels to identify the brand such as websites, favicons, social profiles like Facebook & Twitter, email signature, letter pads, business cards, digital ads, signage & banners, presentation templates etc. Just that the logo size varies depending upon the channel.
Here are the top free online logo builders:
3. Favicon
Favicons are a small image that represents the icon of a website and which is seen at the beginning of a website address bar in browsers. These icons are also used when bookmarking a site. Favicons will help to uplift brand identification and it will stand out and helps to identify the site when many tabs are open in a browser. People are usually attracted to images than texts!
Even though modern browsers support PNG, GIF or JPG formats it is a standard practice to have the .ico format which works on all browsers. The standard size for a favicon is 16 x 16 pixels.
Just add the below HTML tag to the <head> section once uploaded the favicon image:
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" />
Below are the top two free online tools which help to build favicons easily:
4. Navigation Menu
A Navigation menu should be simple & attractive. A menu item can have sub-links as well as shown in the picture below.
Recently many websites are coming up with a sticky menu, which means the menu will stick at the top even if the page is scrolled down. In this case, it is also advised to resize the logo and menu to a smaller size for better visibility of the page. TechWyse does exactly the same
Depending upon the type of industry & business some companies adopt Mega Menu so that they can accommodate images or all of their navigation links. For example, shopping cart sites, News and Journal sites etc.
Hamburger menu or icon hides the traditional menu by just showing three horizontal lines. Firstly Hamburger icons were popular when sites are opened using mobile but recently some sites are adopting Hamburger menus to save the navigation space. Of course, some visitors find it difficult to identify the menu. Accor Hotels adopts Hamburger menu.
5. Hero images
After the menu, next consideration is the large web banner image which is placed on the home page of a website. It’s been quite popular nowadays and it’s called Hero images or Hero Banners, some adopt sliding multiple Hero Images as well.
Earlier the trend was featured images and now it’s getting replaced by Hero Images. This is the first visual element a visitor encounters and hence very important to design carefully.
If you would like to explore more about Hero Images, Envato blog explains it in detail.
For better conversion, a Call-To-Action text & button can be provided on the Hero Images and this is the key for integrating Hero Images. Other than Hero Images some sites adopt short repeating video as well!
Once implemented make sure that the Hero Images are not taking much time to load, on an average visitors wait only for less than 3 seconds for the page to load. Images & videos can be hosted on fast CDN network for quick loading of the site resources.
Free Hero Images can be downloaded from:
6. Call-To-Action Buttons
Call-to-Action is an opportunity to take your visitors to a step forward to become a customer. Call-to-Action button is the most important part of a sales funnel. Many times a potential customer may be looking for an action to be performed after going through the site content & skipping the CTA is a grave mistake. The calls to action serve as a link between a visitor & a conversion.
Click here to know more about Call-To-Action Buttons with examples.
7. Sales Funnel
Also called purchasing journey, a sales funnel is the journey of a prospect towards the goal of purchasing a product or service. It can also be called as a sales process from awareness to action.
The stages include:
Creating awareness about the product, service or solution
Create more interest
Give more information & offers that help to take a decision.
The final stage is action – buying the product or service.
Sales Funnels are created by placing proper Call-To-Action buttons, detail oriented pages, videos, e-books etc.
8. Parallax scrolling
Parallax scrolling is an effect created where the background image of a website moves slower than the foreground content or images when the page is scrolled, creating the illusion of depth & immersion. This is a new trend and it will attract & give a feeling of vibrant, innovative and fresh to the site visitors.
Developers can easily create the Parallax effect without spending much time & usually, it is done only in the home pages of a site. Here is one great example from PORSCHEvolution
9. Title & Meta Tags
Meta tags provide information about the page to the visitors & search engines.
Adding a relevant & proper meta title & meta description is very important if your site needs to be ranked by search engines. The length should be limited to 50 – 60 characters long.
The order of the meta tags from beginning to end should be as follows:
Keyword 1 | Keyword 2 | Location | Brand or Company Name
Location is added only if you want to target the page by location – Google Local.
Meta title & description should match with what the page is talking about. This should be done for every page on the site that is visible by the search engine bots. Here are the few things to remember while adding a Meta Title & Description.
Meta Title or Title tag is the most important on-page SEO factor and it is displayed in the search engine as most obvious. It should contain all the keywords that rank for the page.
Meta Description can be up to 155 characters or more but Google will break it & show only 155 characters. Meta description will show up in the search results just below the title. A meta description should be unique & attractive enough to click the link and visit the page.
The meta title & description tag should be placed in the <head> section of a HTML document.
<title>Your page title goes here</title>
<meta name="description" content="Meta description goes here. Limit to 155 characters"/>
10. Heading Tags
<h1> to <h6> heading tags are used to define heading on a web page. Heading tags has some influence to rank in search engines if it is used properly. By reading the <h1> tag, search engines understand what this page is about.
For the main title of the page, always use <h1> tag and not more than one <h1> tag should appear in a page. Other tags such as <h2>, <h3> etc. can be used multiple times & is used for sub-headings.
It will help users to read the content in a more user-friendly way if the contents are categorized with differed headings.
11. Social Media
People often tend to log in to their social profiles and having your presence there will help your customers & prospects to interact with you any time and followers can see your social updates.
Having social media icons on your website is a good digital marketing & link building strategy which helps to grow & recognize your brand easily. The best position to place the social icons is on the top-right side of the page.
12. Google Reviews
Google Reviews are top & trusted reviews from customers and your business will have a good value when the star ratings are above 4. It gives others the message that the product or services offered by the company is of high quality.
The advantage of Google Reviews is that the testimonials or feedback’s are provided by the customers and the business owner cannot delete or manipulate such feedback.
Google provides API to bring such ratings & feedback to the site and it will really add value to your website. Having more positive reviews will help your site rank better in search engines.
13. 404 Page
A 404 or a broken page is displayed when a user visits a page that exists no longer or when a visitor types some additional text in the URL of a site. Whatever be the case, it is important to design the 404 page in a way that is useful for a visitor like providing a search box or list the services provided by the company etc..
Instead of going for a standard 404 page, design the page so that it looks attractive and has the site navigation menus. Having a creative and fun way to present 404 page is challenging.
Canva shows us some creative ways to design the 404 pages!
14. Blog
I am writing this blog because I want to help people by sharing the knowledge i have acquired. Similarly, you can also write blogs about your industry which will help the visitors when searched for such a topic.
Writing blogs is equal to updating content in the site & it helps to rank better in search engines and ultimately boost your business. Installing a blog is quick & easy but a developer help is required to change the theme if it needs to match your website.
Top 3 free blog publishing platforms are:
15. Awards, Certifications & Associations
If your company is recognized for something outstanding like awards or certifications, then mention the same in the home page of the site & it will add trust & credibility and visitors will value it!
16. Freebies
Visitors will get attracted or stay on our page when we have something free to offer.
This will be just a starting journey of the sales funnel.
Offer something that fits in your industry, here are some examples:
Free Website Audit Report – Collect website URL and email address using a form
Free E-Book – Collect the name and email address of the visitor using a form.
Free Trial – If you are marketing a SaaS application or Email Marketing Software etc.
17. Live Chat
Having a live chat in your site helps to communicate between you & the prospect instantly. This will not only make them happy but a sign of good customer support. Live chat box is usually placed on the right side bottom of the page.
When it comes to chat integration with your website, it’s just about copying & pasting a script into your website. Isn’t it super cool?
Here are some of the free chat tools which you can use right away but limited with some features:
Here is a great article from Neil Patel on 4 Reasons Why You Need Live Chat Now
18. Newsletter Subscription
Newsletters are one of the valuable marketing tools and it will help companies to get in touch with their prospects or customers. It is also an opportunity to convert prospects or subscribers to customers. Other advantages include:
Send industry related blogs.
Increase the subscribers.
Generate brand value.
Update about new products & services.
Inform subscribers about promotions, offers & discounts.
So have a small form in the website asking the name & email address to grow your subscriber base. Note that to send newsletters, you need to signup for the Email Marketing platforms such as Mailchimp, SendGrid, Campaign Monitor etc.
19. Footer
A website footer contains the following four elements:
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Sitemap – Here all links to the site pages are listed in a structured way & users can find the pages easily. Some people may not see the submenu items on the header menu, so the sitemap acts as a safety net catching the visitors before they reach at the end of the page. Social links
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Copyright – Seen at the very bottom of the page & text aligned to center.
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Have something like @year | Company Name | All Rights Reserved
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Link to Privacy Policy.
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Link to Terms of use.
20. Responsive Design
As mobile traffic counts to nearly 50% of the whole traffic to websites, it is a must that your website adopt responsive design, means the site is compatible in all the devices including smartphones & tablets. Here, the different elements in a website respond differently when viewed from different devices for the best user experience.
Developer makes the site responsive by adjusting the style and javascript of a site.
Other modifications include the following:
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Images & texts size should be reduced. Some images can be completely taken off for faster loading. Texts should be in a mobile readable format.
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A smartphone can accommodate only hamburger menus.
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Flash is not supported in smartphones.
Following are the pages you might consider to include in your website so that the visitors can know not just about your products & services but also about the company & the team, what other say etc.
Smashing Magazine details about Responsive Web Design – What It Is And How To Use It
Other than the website elements listed above, think about the relevant pages that can be included on the website. Just stuffing the pages & content may confuse the visitors & bots, so just make sure to have necessary and detailed pages about your product, services, company etc.
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Service Features
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Portfolio/Clients
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About Us
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Our Team
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Testimonials
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Gallery
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Video Section
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Contact Us Form
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Google Location Map
Once you are done the above please check your site using the Google tools below:
Google Page Speed – Reports on the performance of your page by providing a score for mobile and desktop devices and suggests on how to improve those pages.
Google Mobile-Friendly Test – Will check whether your web page is mobile-friendly.
Please leave your valuable feedback at the comments section below!
