5 Must-Do Tasks When Planning A New Business Website Explained by UK Web Design Experts Digital NRG
At Digital NRG we build 100’s of new websites for businesses each year. Although our main business activities centre around generating leads for businesses through search engine optimisation (SEO), Google Adwords (PPC) and social media marketing – we have become one of the leading experts in web design in the UK.
All marketing online should start with a website that is relevant to your potential customer and has the right information to keep them on your website. Here are some easy to follow tips on how to plan your new website. Most can be changed after the website is built, but is much easier to do during the build.
If you are considering a new website for your business then let Digital NRG take the stress and strain of getting your new website built. We can build attractive, highly-engaging and customer converting websites. Please call Head Office on 0333 7000787
1. WWW. Or Not?
By this we mean, when people are visiting your website does the address start with a www or not. For example, our website address is digitalnrg.co.uk, but it could be set to www.digitalnrg.co.uk.
Many large organisations (such as Google and Amazon) do not use the www and make the website address more about the brand. In our experience, local and smaller companies, like to have the www before the website address. In terms of being found online – there is no distinguishable difference between either option. It is simply a personal preference.
You can still use the www address on printed literature and business cards to make it clear it is a website address.
Remember to point the “other” version to the first (this is normally done in your domain account)
Actions: Decide which version of the address you prefer.
2. Https or Http?
Https (note the additional “s” on the end) signifies that your website is secure. The “s” is added to your website once a certificate has been issued against your website by a certified 3rd party. They are commonly called SSL certificates. This encrypts information sent to and from your website. This is a must if your website is taking any form of payment online.
A year or so ago Google indicated that a website will rank slightly better if it had an SSL certificate. Since then they have started to add “labels” next to websites that either state “not secure” or have a symbol that when clicked on has a similar statement. 
Does this mean that my website is likely to be hacked or have security issues? The answer is simply “No”, it means that your website is not encrypted for payments and data transfer.
Two years ago it would have been an unnecessary expense to add an SSL certificate to a website that does not accept payments. One year ago, it would have been a “nice to have”. If planning a new website today, it is recommended to include adding an SSL certificate.
Action: Budget and plan to add an SSL certificate to your new website.
Digital NRG now include the purchase and implementation of SSL certificates on all new websites we build for customer. For more information please telephone 0333 7000787
3. Add Google Monitoring to your website
Google have some excellent tools to help website owners understand how Google, and your website visitors, see and interact with your website and business.
The first tool you will want to add to your website is “Google Analytics”. This free tool allows you to see the number of visitors to your website, how many pages they visited, how long they stayed on the website and 100’s of other pieces of information to allow you to track the journey of visitors through your website.
You can even set-up goals and events to track and report when customers take a certain action on your website such as watch a video or fill in an enquiry form.
The second free tool to install on your website is “Search Console” (formally Google Webmaster Tools). This provides data on how Google sees your website. It can provide information on the number of pages indexed (the number of pages Google recognises and will show in the results), any errors it is seeing in the website code, any issues with missing pages or broken links from one page to another. Again, there is a raft of data to help you get the most from your website.
Either or both can be added to the new business website by simply adding a short piece of code to the “backend” of the website.
Action: Add Analytics and search console to the website
Digital NRG new websites have analytics and “search console” code added as standard. Our UK SEO Team use this information to track, measure, build on and review the customer journey through your website and conversion of customers. For more information on our SEO services please telephone 0333 7000787
4. Site navigation and structure
In general, if your business works in one market, or niche, then your website will reflect that market.
The structure of the website should make it easy for people to find the relevant information.
For example, if you are building a website for a company that build conservatories, orangeries, small extensions, but also build kitchens and sells conservatory furniture – how would you structure it?
The first question to ask is, should all of these services and products be on the same website or have a different website for specialities?
The question to ask yourself is “what are our speciality”? “What are we expert in”? If you are an expert local builder that build orangeries and builds kitchens – one website is perfect. If your expertise is at building orangeries and conservatories, the kitchen information could be confusing and dilute your expertise, and should be given its own website.
If, as you are, you are on our website you will see many different services relating to digital marketing. Should we have separate websites for the SEO service and PPC service? Our expertise is in getting leads for business, from the internet. So, in our opinion, we should include every service for getting leads and so we have “bundled” them in our “digital marketing” website. Hopefully, you get the impression that we can provide any, and every, relevant service and you can benefit from these services through one, expert and trustworthy, supplier.
Action: What should be on this website and, as importantly, what should not be included?
The next decision to be made is what information should be on its own page and what should be combined.
Using our example above, would orangeries and conservatories be on the same page as similar products, or on separate pages as very different products where potential customers will know the difference.
A general rule of thumb applies if you are not sure. If you can write 800 words, unique and engaging on the subject it should have its own page. 800 words may sound as a lot of information, but it really isn’t (this article passed 800 words about 5 paragraphs ago). When creating a page on conservatories you can explain what a conservatory is, how it is manufactured, the building process, the warranties and guarantees, the payment schedule and much more, I am sure. Could you write another page, without copying text, for orangeries? If yes, they should have their own page.
Action: Plan the pages to be created around the customer knowledge, product differentiates and the content or copy word count.
Lastly, for structure, what course of action do you want the reader to take once they have finished reading the content?
When someone lands on your website, either on the homepage or on a page regarding a particular product, service or piece of information you need to consider and plan where you want the visitor to go when finished on that page or what action you want them to take.
This could be to get further or more detailed information, or to fill in an enquiry form or to telephone your business or to sign-up for a newsletter or to claim a coupon code (or all 5!).
Action: What action do you want the visitor to take on each page.
The best practice here is whenever the person has to scroll down the page, there should be a “call to action”. So wherever they are on a page, if they make the decision to take the action you want them to do – it is easy and obvious how to do so.
Digital NRG build websites for businesses with customer conversion in mind. Our customers websites have the relevant call to action on every page scroll. For more information please telephone 0333 7000787
5. Mapping Your New Website
If you have followed the actions so far the hard work has been completed. Now, we need to map the website. This can be done on a piece of paper, a “mind map” or word document.
The home page is normally a “hub page” which introduces the company, products or services and direct people to the relevant information and pages.
Action:
- Add the pages (you have decided to create) at the top.
- Add any “further details” pages or option pages beneath these
- Add in the pages that people will expect to find on a website i.e. “About Us” and “contact pages”
- Write next to each page the action you want people to take
- Add a page that recognises the person has taken an action i.e. if they have made a purchase they should go to a “confirmation of order” page. If they have filled in an enquiry form, they should see a “thank you” page.
That is it! Remember that even with great rankings in search engines or highly effective advertising – any conversion will take place on your website. Make it easy for people to do business with you.
If you would like information on the web design and website building service from Digital NRG then please telephone Head Office in Bristol on 0333 7000787
Alternatively, for larger organisations or complicated web design, consider our web design consultation service. Again, for more information please telephone our Bristol Head Office on 0333 7000787
