What do I want my website to do?

Written by Tyler Groskreutz on November 2, 2016

Planning a website

Most businesses know that they need a website. What the website does often varies by industry, and often the niche within that industry. In short, a website should make the lives of your existing or potential customers easier and also benefit some function of the business. So, before you sit down with someone to have a website built, you should consider what would help accomplish these goals.

Here’s a list that help you get start:

Contact Information

Every website should have a phone number and email address at the very least. If you have at least this, a customer will likely feel better doing business with you, because they have an avenue to reach you if they have an issue with your product or service. It also provides a good way to create initial contact without much investment on their part.

About Information

People love stories. People also love businesses with a great back story. An about page allows a business to connect on personal level that might not otherwise be achieved. It also creates trust and authenticity around a business.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are there questions that are often reoccurring in initial contact to potential or existing customers? By doing creating a FAQ’s section to a business’s site, you can automate some of the processes. It allows gives people an insight to how you run your business. This adds a lot of value in their decision making process.

Blog

A blog post can be a great way to get a conversation started with people who are new or existing customers. We use it to show that we know what we are taking about, and you also can use it to become an authority in your area of expertise. In addition, it is a great way to help your Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Appointment Creation

Is your business a service that works with a schedule? Then, you could be using your website to take appointments for you. A feature like this could be handled in a plethora of different ways, and in varying amounts of complexity. It can be as simple as a contact form that sends you an email requesting an appointment time and date, or as complicated as having an appointment calendar that integrates with whatever application you use, like Google Calendars or Outlook.

E-Commerce

Sales might be boosted by adding another salesperson. Your website could be doing this for you. Often, selling products through a websites can handle the additional overhead associated with selling products online. Those things might include shipping, local/state/federal taxes, inventory, etc.

Services

Do your customers know what you offer? Putting your services on a website will help them easily glean this information, and possibly come to you for things they hadn’t previously thought of.

Deals and Promotions

Are you running a sale or a giveaway? Information about these promotions on your website could prevent a lot extra emails in your inbox when you could be better using your time on other tasks. We have a business in town that runs a giveaway of several goods and services a couple times per year. This creates a lot of buzz around their social media platforms and drives a significant amount of traffic to their website. Doing this also creates good will around their brand, and that is something businesses are often unsuccessful attempting.

Careers

We have a careers section on our website. Even when we don’t have any positions open and listed, we receive emails from people looking for jobs. It is a great way to receive information from people that are looking for a new position.

As you can tell, many often the items on this list are sales funnel oriented, but all of them are meant to make the life of owning a business easier. Does your budget not allow all the features your business needs to be added at once? That’s fine. In the world of today’s web, often these features can simply added to your website without having to overhaul the entire thing. Your business’s website can grow and become more complex as your business does.

Are we missing something on this list? Leave us a comment below, and we’d love to discuss it with you!

If your business is considering changes to your website, let us help.

We would love to chat with you about your website project. Please fill out our contact form and we can talk about it in whatever method works best whether it is a phone call, email, virtual meeting, or in person if it is in the Mankato, MN area.