What does it take for a website to sell?

How to properly develop a website so that it constantly brings new customers

There are many websites on various topics, but not all of them become truly successful and effective for business development. This is due to the fact that developers forget about the important features of a valuable resource: comfort, periodic modernization, beautiful design, speed of loading, etc.

But compliance with these criteria may not always be sufficient. In order for your site to become an effective tool for attracting potential customers, you need to know what is needed for the site. Consider what typical mistakes developers make in order to circumvent them in the future. This is exactly what will be discussed in the article.

Why is the resource inefficient?

For a successful business, you need to develop a website. It would seem that everything is clear. But when it comes to launching a resource, there are a considerable number of difficulties. Most often they are caused by mistakes of customers, developers and incorrectly constructed process of creating a website.

Developer Errors:

• Frivolous attitude to work: web design studios are poorly versed in the principles of business, products or services.
• Displaying the obvious on the site: developers need to show access to what interests different segments of buyers.
• Lack of binding of the site to the business process: this is not of interest to the developer studio.
• Automated marketing and sales process.

Customer errors:

The mistakes of customers are primarily provoked by the shortcomings of developers, which makes the process of creating a website only more difficult.:

• Excessive confidence in their knowledge: all employees of the company from lower and higher positions believe that they know how to develop a website for their business.
• Design priority: by focusing on the visualization of the site, customers forget about the goals that need to be achieved for effective business development.
• Website = email marketing: its proper development will allow you to fulfill all KPIs.
• Neglecting the timing of content creation: 2/3 of all work on the project is spent on this.
• Thinking about a very “big” or “small” site price: a ready-made site can either pay off or not pay off in the long term.

Incorrect website creation process

How does development work? It all starts with a meeting of the customer with the developers of the web studio. The client voices his vision, talks about his business so that the web studio clearly understands how she needs to make a website.

Next, a technical task is being prepared, in which all the stages of interaction are prescribed. Starting with the concept and prototype, drawing the design of all pages, their layout, programming, content creation, etc. For this, it is important to approve each stage with the customer. Otherwise, it may happen that the site is ready, but the customer does not like something, or some of his requirements have not been met. As a result, a large amount of work done in vain, dissatisfaction of the parties and shoals on the site.

How do you need to make a website correctly?

Understand that a website is an Internet marketing process, not a product

A website as a business tool from time to time requires investments of finance and effort. As the business develops, you need to make the site more functional and faster, you need to upgrade it and reboot it. Therefore, always be ready to personally participate in the process of creating a website, if possible by connecting contractors.

Careful selection of contractors

To date, there are many online services that will help to accurately determine the qualifications of the company and choose the most suitable contractor.

Development of an e-marketing strategy

The correct creation of a strategy involves the following:

• Study of the customer’s business model. To do this, it is necessary to collect briefings regarding the market, business, products and services; visit shopping centers; establish contact with production and sales department; study automatic processes and 1C.
• Definition of the purpose and objectives of electronic marketing.
• Analysis of target buyers.
• The study of the site, advertising in online and offline modes, available content, analytical data.
• Internet demand research.
• Research of business colleagues in the network and beyond.
• Forecasting the payback of invested funds in the creation of a website.

Target traffic analysis

At this stage, it is necessary:

• Divide the audience into segments based on requests, expectations, objections, competitiveness.
• Collect all available requests on the subject of the site.
• Process the demand of competitors.

Work on the site structure

The structure of the future site is its foundation, which stands on three pillars: marketing, demand, target audience. It should be the connecting link of such elements:

• Information about the company, services and products.
• Successes, that is, cases.
• Specialized solutions of a technological nature.
• Specific products, equipment and materials.
• An information environment that consists of the most frequently asked questions, publications and terms.

It is mandatory to include all requests on the subject of the site. For each segment of potential buyers, you need to create pages and sections that will be able to interest them.

Develop a website only from landing pages

It is best to develop all sections of the site containing products as landing pages (landing pages). At the same time, attach information graphs, instructions, video materials and other details to each item of the product or service that will be useful for the target audience.

Make the site convincing and engaging

Using numerous tools, it is possible to bring to life all the characteristics of a successful website that colleagues in the shop have, and which are important for effective competition. First of all, it is a picker, planner and calculator. This is how the filtering of products according to the requests of a potential audience is created.

Using the modeling of a potential customer’s path, you can better understand the functionality and structure of the site. It is worth paying attention first of all to what difficulties arise on the site. To prevent them, you need to think in advance about ways to solve them (constructor, landing pages, menus, links, etc.).

Adaptation to industry solutions

It is important to regularly pay attention to the display of industry solutions. At the same time, all problems and typical cases must be detailed for all segments of the target audience.

For example, how is the processing of a request for some problem on the company’s website? Initially, information about the problem is displayed, then possible ways to solve it, cases and equipment in the necessary configuration.

At the same time, the scheme necessarily contains remarketing and email marketing, because without this, full-fledged advertising and business management is impossible.

Support for dealers, distributors and franchisees

How to evaluate the effectiveness of the service for advertising the company’s website if it is not engaged in sales? Its products are sold by dealers, and installers are engaged in the installation.

If the company has its own wholesalers, then the following sections should be present on the page:

• Sorting orders.
• Personal account.
• Closed directories for wholesale.
• Dealer training program.

Adaptation of mobile devices

Sometimes customers believe that they do not need adaptability for mobile phones. However, mobile traffic continues to grow rapidly every year. Therefore, you should not abandon the design and layout for gadgets without good reasons for this.

Website work with the Sales and Analytics department

The correct configuration of analytics is as follows:

• Linking the site to the sales and product control system (1C, CRM, etc.)
• Enabling call tracking (call tracking) and analytics systems.
• Regular reporting and calculation of business KPIs, as well as tracking the payback of the site.

Service

It is not uncommon for a customer to have insufficient competence to maintain their own resource, which requires regular maintenance.

The tasks of the web studio include troubleshooting, adding new functionality, implementing planned changes and corrections, as well as adapting the site to new business events.

Will it pay off, or not

A ready-made resource will either pay off the invested finances within a certain period, or not. In most cases, the payback in the first year is negative, but after 2 years the dynamics gradually improves.

Payback calculation

• Calculation of the total cost of creation.
• Analysis of business indicators (leads, sales, revenue, margins, conversions).
• Detecting problems.
• Working out ways of possible actions.
• Creation of information graphs about expenses and income with the use of SEO and contextual advertising.

The received forecast will become your compass in further business development, Internet marketing planning, which you need to pay attention to from time to time. It happens that it is not always possible to comply with it due to the insufficient success of the enterprise.

Having passed all the above stages, you have every chance to turn the resource into an effective tool for the development of your business, and not into a primitive picture for the presentation of the company.