- Amanda C. Hill, M.A.
Five Elements Your Website Needs to Be Effective
Creating a website is the first step in your journey as an online entrepreneur. Your website is your home on the Internet where you refer all your customers, clients and network. It needs to be perfect before you start your online marketing strategies with social media marketing and affiliate marketing. Here are five elements your website needs to be effective.
Correct Pages
There are certain standards for websites that evolved over time. The first thing you need is to make sure you have the basic pages: about, contact, privacy policy, sitemap and terms of service. These pages outline everything your visitors need to know about you, what you do, how to use your website and what they can and cannot do with the information you are giving them. Put links to these pages in your navigation system for easy access.
Social Media Buttons
Your customers on are on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. You need to be there too. Once you set up your accounts, put buttons on your website and link to your social media profiles. This makes it easy for your customers to find you on their favorite social media network. All three of the major social media sites provide free buttons and images for quick integration with their website. The Facebook Like box and the Twitter Follow button let your customers connect with your social media profiles without leaving your website. Make it easy for your customers to find you.
Sharing Buttons
Put buttons on your blog posts and pages for easy sharing. If you make it easy for your readers to share your blog post on social bookmarking sites like Digg, Delicious and StumbleUpon they will. Also, place links to Twitter and Facebook on your posts so your readers can share with their network. You get traffic back to your website every time they do this.
Sign Up
There’s a saying on the Internet that “The money is in the list.” You want to create a mailing list of your readers so you can easily promote your new products, affiliate links and blog posts directly to their email. Place a box on your website for them to sign up for updates or a newsletter from your website.
Call to Action
The biggest problem most websites have is there is no call to action. People get to your website but they don’t know what to do so they back out and go to a website that tells them what to do. Place calls to action on your website. Next to your social media profiles place instructions to “Follow Us Now!” Next to your sharing buttons, tell your readers to “Share this post!” Label everything with a call to action so your readers know what it is.
Your website is an extension of your business. In order for your website to be effective, you need to set it up to be user friendly and welcoming. You need to tell your readers what to do and how to do it. Add these five elements to your website and it will be ready for your marketing campaigns.