Digital Marketing

How to Build an Impactful Website

Saifuddin Akber Ali | | 6 min read

A user-friendly website is the most effective and cost-efficient marketing channel for promoting small businesses, whether they are selling their product online or want to provide some information about their business and their contact details. [fn]Corey Morris, Search Engine Journal (online), “How to make a successful website:11 Critical Factors”, Published 2021 May 19, Link Retrieved 2022 January 09 from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-make-a-successful-website/257617/#close [/fn]

Before building a website, it is good to think about what one needs to achieve with the website. Careful consideration of the following points will help accomplish the website’s goals and make it more impactful.

Clearly Define your Goals

The organizational goal of creating a website must be in alignment with the purposes of the customer. A website having aligned organizational and customer goals will result in traffic, lead, and sales generation. Whereas if the plans don’t align, the customers will bounce from the site, not knowing why they should buy from the website.  [fn]Author not specified, Engenius, “Website Goals: Measure What Matters in Web Design [2019 Update]”, Published 2016 November 15, Link retrieved 2022 January 10, https://engeniusweb.com/setting-good-goals-website/[/fn] It is pointless to build a website to sell a product or service that the customer does not want to buy. The most important metric to measure goal achievement is the Key Performance Indicator.

95% of marketers agree that “to truly matter, marketing analytics KPI must be tied to broader business goals.”

 

 

Create Domain Name with Proper Extension

The next step in building an effective website is creating a Domain name. [fn]Nick Schaferhoff, Website Setup (online), “How to Choose a Domain Name”, Published 2021 December 20, Link Retrieved 2022 January 09. https://websitesetup.org/choose-domain-name/[/fn] A good domain name should be short, memorable, and easy to spell, without any number or hyphen with the proper domain extension.

Less than a decade ago, there were fewer than 30 top-level domains [fn]Nick Galov, Webtribunal (online), “43+ Insightful Domain Facts”, Published on 2022 April 22, Link retrieved on 2022 May 4. https://webtribunal.net/blog/domain-facts/#gref [/fn], now there are close to 2000

Select Hosting Service

Purchase scalable, secure website hosting service with good tech support. Other things to consider may be shared server, dedicated server or virtual private server, uptime, and loading speed.

A shared server hosting service is the cheapest as several users share server resources. A dedicated server is the most expensive as a whole dedicated server is available for a website. The virtual private server gives the best of both the shared and dedicated server as it has a partition of the server dedicated to a particular website.

Uptime is the percentage of time the server is available. Look for a hosting service with 100% uptime.

Loading speed refers to how fast a website loads. It depends on the location of the host server. The farther the server is from the user, the slower will be the loading speed of the website.

Look for the hosting service that offers CDN, which stands for Content Distribution Network. In a CDN, servers are located in geographically distributed locations, and the user is connected to the nearest server, thus reducing the loading time. 

Pages that load within two seconds have an average bounce rate of 9%, while pages that load in five seconds see their bounce rates skyrocket to 38%. [fn]Author unspecified, Pingdom (online), “Does Page Load Time Really Affect Bounce Rate?”, Published on 2018 January 18, Link retrieved on 2022 May 04. https://www.pingdom.com/blog/page-load-time-really-affect-bounce-rate/ [/fn]

Choose the Appropriate Content Management Service 

Having selected the hosting service provider, the next step is to choose a Content Management Service. [fn]Soumya Jha, Zyxware (online), “Top Five Criteria to Pick the Right CMS for Your Website,” Published 2022 January 21, Link accessed on 2022 May 09. https://www.zyxware.com/blog/top-5-criteria-to-pick-the-right-cms-for-your-website[/fn] With myriad service providers and a growing number of internal stakeholders, the task may appear daunting. But with a structured approach, selecting a CMS can be simplified. [fn]Author unspecified, Sitecore (courseware/online), “Selecting a CMS: How to Choose the right CMS”, Dateline not provided, Link retrieved 2022 January 10, https://www.sitecore.com/knowledge-center/digital-marketing-resources/how-to-choose-a-cms[/fn] Factors to consider are:

  • evaluating current and future needs,
  • finding an implementation partner if the company doesn’t have an in-house implementation team,
  • writing a proposal request, and
  • evaluating vendor response.

Incidentally, over 455 million websites use WordPress as of 2021. [fn]Author unspecified, Envisage Digital (online), “WordPress Market Share In 2022”, Dateline not provided, Link retrieved on 2022 May 04. https://www.envisagedigital.co.uk/wordpress-market-share/#chapter-1 [/fn] On the other hand, Drupal is deployed more and more in e-governance projects. [fn]Anoop John & Vimal Joseph & Thomas P. Thomas, Zyxware (online), “Why Drupal is a Good Fit for E-Governance,” Published 2018 February 07, Link accessed on 2022 May 09. https://www.zyxware.com/articles/5743/why-drupal-is-a-good-fit-for-e-governance [/fn]&[fn]Soumya Jha, Zyxware (online), “Why Drupal Is the Best CMS for Federal Sites,” Published 2022 January 05, Link accessed on 2022 May 05. https://www.zyxware.com/listicle/top-5-reasons-why-drupal-is-the-best-cms-for-federal-sites[/fn]&[fn]Soumya Jha, Zyxware (online), “Top Five Reasons Why Drupal Is the Most Agile CMS,” Published 2021 November 22, Link accessed on 2022 May 09. https://www.zyxware.com/listicle/top-5-reasons-why-drupal-is-the-most-agile-cms[/fn] Adobe Experience Manager and Liferay are strong contenders to Drupal in Enterprise application space. [fn]Soumya Jha, Zyxware (online), “Drupal vs AEM vs Liferay: Which Is the Best DXP for Your Enterprise Applications,” Published 2022 May 05, Link accessed on 2022 May 09. https://www.zyxware.com/article/drupal-vs-aem-vs-liferay-which-is-the-best-dxp-platform[/fn] Another criteria for choosing a CMS is its popularity. [fn]Soumya Jha, Zyxware (online), “Drupal vs Joomla vs WordPress: A Comprehensive Review of Security of Open-Source CMS,” Published 2022 April 27, Link accessed on 2022 May 09. https://www.zyxware.com/blog/drupal-vs-joomla-vs-wordpress-a-comprehensive-review-of-security-of-open-source-cms[/fn] &[fn]Kumar Sourav, Zyxware (online), “Drupal Vs WordPress Vs Joomla Vs Magento - Which CMS is best for your Business in 2022?” Published 2021 July 15, Link accessed on 2022 May 09. https://www.zyxware.com/blog/drupal-vs-wordpress-vs-joomla-vs-magento-which-one-is-best-in-2022[/fn] Certain domains such as educational institutions or media establishments pick their CMS based on the specificity of task at hand. [fn]Soumya Jha, Zyxware (online), “Why Do Educational Institutes Prefer Drupal over Other CMS?” Published 2021 November 23, Link accessed on 2022 May 09. https://www.zyxware.com/article/why-do-educational-institutes-prefer-drupal-over-other-cms[/fn] & [fn]Soumya Jha, Zyxware (online), “Top Five Reasons Why Media Businesses Are Relying on Drupal,” Published 2021 October 28, Link accessed on 2022 May 09. https://www.zyxware.com/listicle/top-five-reasons-why-media-businesses-are-relying-on-drupal[/fn]

 

 

Keep the Design Simple

By simple design, it doesn’t mean that the website should not have any images or colours. On the contrary, a simple design website may have images and colours that should lead the visitor to call on the action. Studies after studies have shown that simple, uncluttered websites have a higher conversion rate. [fn]Olivia Strickland, Cuker (online), “The Importance of Simplicity in Website Design”, Published 2019 July 29, Link retrieved 2022 May 09, https://www.cukeragency.com/blog/2019/07/29/importance-simplicity-website-design/ [/fn] Following are the attributes of a simple design:

  • user-friendly,
  • easy to navigate,
  • fast download,
  • minimalistic design,
  • mobile-friendly,
  • easier to maintain,
  • google SEO friendly, and
  • higher conversions.

Simple design concepts should especially be applied to the landing page in particular and the whole website in general.

75% of people base the credibility of a business on how their website looks. [fn]Brendan Hufford, Clique (online), “The 7 Key Stages of Every Web Design Process”, Dateline not provided, Link retrieved on 2022 May 04. https://cliquestudios.com/web-design-process/ [/fn]
Landing page

Landing Page Optimization

Landing page optimization refers to the improvement in elements of a website to increase conversions. A landing page is specially designed to generate sales and capture leads. Landing pages are the leading destination of paid marketing campaigns, and a lot of money and resources are spent driving traffic to these pages. Optimizing a landing page ensures the highest conversion from visitors arriving at the landing page. [fn]Author unspecified, Optimizely (online), “Optipedia—Optimization glossary: Landing Page Optimization”, Dateline not provided, Link retrieved 2022 January 10, https://www.optimizely.com/optimization-glossary/landing-page-optimization/ [/fn]

Critical components of landing page optimization are: 

  • limiting action on the landing page, 
  • prominently displaying a clear description of business and contact details, 
  • adding testimonials, 
  • enticing customers with offers for their contact information, 
  • decreasing page load time, and 
  • search engine optimization.
Smartphones held a 63% share of all business website visits. [fn]Brendan Hufford, Clique (online), “20+ Web Design Statistics You’ll Need to Create the Perfect Website for 2022”, Published 2022 January 22, Link retrieved on 2022 May 04. https://cliquestudios.com/web-design-statistics/ [/fn]

Regularly Create and Publish Customer-Oriented Content

Businesses constantly invest in content marketing because it has proven a resounding success. [fn]Rebbeca Riserbato, Hubspot Marketing (online), “10 Benefits of Consistent High Quality Content Marketing”, Published 2021 October 27, Link retrieved 2022 January 10. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/benefits-high-quality-content-consistency-brand[/fn] The benefits of consistently creating and publishing unique customer-oriented content are: 

  • audience retention, 
  • raising brand awareness, 
  • lead generation and increased conversion, 
  • generating industry authority, 
  • higher SERP (Search Engine Result Page), and 
  • creating loyal brand advocates.
Content creation is a top priority for 80% of marketers. [fn]Author unspecified, HubSpot (online), “Not Another State of Marketing Report 2021”, Dateline not provided, Link retrieved on 2022 May 04. https://www.hubspot.com/state-of-marketing? [/fn] Moreover, on average, content marketing accounts for26% of B2B marketing budgets.
 

 

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