10 Things To Build Your Brand

Building your brand’s website? Here are 10 things you must know

It is of utmost importance for businesses to have a customer-friendly website, more so if your brand or business is just starting out. The internet is filled with horrible sites- starting with terrible designs to outdated content, they have it all. When conceptualizing and creating a website, it is of utmost importance to consider all the elements that make it customer-friendly and improve the user experience, not to mention your website should be such that your customers actually want to do business with your brand.

From updated contact information to real customer testimonials, here are our top picks for essentials that every business website should have for it to effectively do business with its customers.

1. A clear understanding of who you are

A customer who happens to stumble upon your website should not be the one to do investigative work to understand who you are and exactly what you do. This means clearly stating your name and summing up your products, services, offerings and brand right on the home page.

Be sure to let people who that this is the website they have been looking for early on to attract their attention and encourage your visitor to stay on your website longer.

2. A simple web address

It’s best to not complicate things. Your domain name is incredibly important and should be something that is easy to remember and type into a web browser or turn into an e-mail address.

The web address should be an important part of your branding and have a great recall value.

It is always recommended to have a .com domain as users are conditioned to type in that extension when they enter a web address. For non-profits or organizations, it is usually recommended to use a .org domain for branding purposes.

It is also best to avoid special characters or numbers which cause confusion in customers and also create issues for SEO.

3. An easily-navigated site map

Ensure your website has clear identifiable links to the most important pages on your website as it is a crucial element for guiding visitors to the information that they are looking for.

You may use features like dropdowns in the navigation menu for your visitors to be able to easily determine where they are heading on your website. With you making it easier for your customers to find what they are looking for; you are taking them further along in the sales funnel and directing them to pages you want them to visit.

4. Easy-to-find contact information

The internet is full of competition and one of the ways to retain customers is to build a connection and be in contact with them. It would be terrible to lose a customer just because they couldn’t get in touch with you.

It is best to assume that your visitors don’t have the time or the patience to click through multiple pages on the website to actually find your contact information. Hence your contact information should be available on every single page of the website- either in the navigation menu, footer or as a form.

Also make sure you include several different ways for your customers to contact you- email address, phone number, a standard contact form, all of these are viable options. You may also add your address and a link to your location in Google Maps, if you deem appropriate.

The idea is to make it as easy as possible for your customers to get in touch with you on your own terms.

5. Customer testimonials
Positive and honest words from real customers help your new visitors and prospective customers trust your product and service more and hence improve the chances of them purchasing the aforementioned product and/or service.

These testimonials also help buyers decide if they actually need the product or service. Real words from real customers make your brand more tangible too.

6. A clear CTA

CTA or Call-to-action is of utmost importance in a brand’s website. You want your visitors to know exactly what

Call attention to your product or services by using highlighted texts, special buttons, texts, etc.

7. SEO
Your website won’t work if no one ever finds or visits it. Ensure that you do at least the basic amount of SEO to make it more accessible to your customers via search engine.

You must ensure you are using the correct key words, inserting lots of links, giving your pages appropriate titles and URLs correctly and using images and videos throughout.

8. Updated content

Your website is your connection to your customer. Hence it is imperative that you give them exciting, fresh and useful things to ensure they have a reason to come back to you and your website.

Your content needs to be original, add value to the customer and have personality. Updated content is also great for SEO and helps you connect with your customer as well.

9. A secure hosting platform

One of the most important things about having a brand website is having it hosted on a secure platform because it concerns the safety of your business, content and customers.

A hack attack can bring down your website, losing you your precious customers and content.

10. Consistent Branding

Your website represents your brand, sells your products and services, attracts more visitors, generates more business leads, promotes more sales and ultimately, helps gain more return on investment. To do so, your brand should have a consistent brand message that cuts through the clutter and builds loyalty and trust with the customer.

It also creates strong recall value of your brand.