Sarah Kelley — May 29, 2019 — May 29, 2019
Did You Know: Your Business Goals Should Be the Backbone of Your Website
Whether you’re just starting a business or have been at it for years, highlighting your key business goals on your website is a huge priority. How do I effectively do that, you ask? Let’s dive into a few thoughts and questions you should be asking yourself before creating your website.
First, what are your business goals? Have you thought them through? Are you constantly creating new goals to achieve? (I hope so.) Are you aiming to attract and engage prospective clients, generate sales, create awareness, share information for users to read, or host an event? Think through all of the facets of your business and what you want to achieve from your website to ensure that you will showcase your priorities on the homepage, and in turn, meet those top goals.
According to Tony Haile, CEO of Chartbeat (a data analytics company), the average reader has an attention span of 15 seconds. “A stunning 55% spent fewer than 15 seconds actively on a page.” This means you have to captivate your audience member with your website within the first 15 seconds they land on your homepage. What’s your hook?
Once you’ve come up with your business goals, large and small, ask yourself a few more questions:
- Who is your audience?
- Why should they come to your website?
- What do you want to achieve by this user coming to the site?
- What keywords are most relevant to your site?
- Want some more Website strategy questions?
After answering all of these questions, you’ll be able to easily come up with the structure of your site and hierarchy of information.
Navigation
What are the 4-5 main buckets of information that your site will cover? Does it make sense to some OUTSIDE your organization? Just because it makes sense to you doesn’t mean your users will intuitively know where to find specific information.
Hero Image and Tagline
Captivate your audience member with your company’s tagline overlayed on a realistic image that describes what you do. I think QuantumXchange’s hero section is one of the coolest I’ve seen!
Introduction: Who are you? What do you do? What is your mission?
Let your users learn about your company in a quick and simple manner. Keep the content short and the imagery welcoming. As Andrea pointed out in her rambling, storytelling on a website is absolutely essential.
Business Goal #1
What is the top conversion you want audience members to complete? Should you showcase your most popular products or topics of work? Market upcoming events? Explain how and why they should become a member?
Business Goal #2
What else makes up the backbone of your company? Should you introduce a few team members? Share the location of your business? Allow easy access for email marketing registration? Showcase your event’s success through an image gallery? For example, take a look at how Prague Summer Nights showcase their programs through an interactive hover, just above their testimonials, upcoming events, and email registration form.
Impact
Do you have a compelling statistic about your business? Why should people engage with you? Check out how the PenFed Foundation displays the impact they have on military families through donations on their site. Other examples could include:
- 5-star rating on TripAdvisor!
- 100% customer satisfaction
- X amount of lives have been changed because of X
Within the first 15 seconds that a user comes to your website, will the information you’ve added towards the top of the page reel them in to learn more? If you’ve answered yes, let’s move on! Not sure? Scroll back up and reevaluate your top business goals and the order you’ve created to highlight them and try again! Luckily, many websites have a flexible structure so you can test the layout of your homepage to see which sections receive the most attention and rotate the sections that are more prominent.
Digital & Social Articles on Business 2 Community
(29)
