7 Key Elements of a Successful Corporate Website

7 Key Elements of a Successful Corporate Website

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a website speaks a million. A successful corporate website contains 7 key elements users expect when interacting with a business online. Though many factors affect the efficiency of a website, the following 7 elements have proven the most influential.

1. Good Visual Design

Corporate website design is crucial to the way a business will be perceived online. The design is the all-encompassing word for all the visuals aspects of a website including theme, logo, fonts, white space, colors and layout. When it comes to a corporate website, the design should be well developed, professional, clean and relevant to the specific company. For example, a yoga studio would likely choose design themes that emphasize a calm, healthy tone in line with their business, rather than an overly bright or vibrant design.

2. Quality Content

Providing relevant content that readers want to see is the next top aspect to a good website. Creating good content strategy will ensure a website not only works effectively but is relevant to the preferred audience.

What you say and how you say it are two of the most important elements of creating a successful website. Content should answer the question, “What’s in it for me?” Content should be informative, but also interesting to read. Finding the right balance is crucial and will entice visitors to keep looking around.

3. Clear Navigation

Navigation is the “GPS” of your website. Navigation, also called Nav Bars, are the buttons that get your visitors where they need to go on your site. Usually, this bar is along the top of the page, or along the left side of the site. It should be uncluttered and simple to use. Visitors want to find what they are looking for as quickly as possible. Make it easy for them and they will continue to use your corporate website.

It’s always a good idea to group similar pages under the same topic to streamline navigation. Too many clicks can mean not enough business, so aim to keep important information accessible in just three clicks or less.

4. Call to Action

The Call to Action is a set of words that urge visitors to take an immediate action on a corporate website. There is no magic formula to a good Call to Action. The key is to continuously test what works best for your website and audience. When testing, it’s important to try out different placement, sizes and colors and to use actionable words.

Give the visitors something to do. Want to drive sales? Provide links and information on promotions that customers should take advantage of now. Want a larger client base? Encourage customers to sign up to receive email updates on the latest news and sales.

5. Credibility of a Corporate Website

A good corporate website gains the trust of visitors. Strong website design can help by incorporating informational items that help identify that a company is a legitimate resource. A big part of achieving this is paying attention to the details. Content should be organized and grammatically correct, the design should be consistent on every page, and there should be contact information and links to social media pages. This all adds up to reassure customers to makes them comfortable trusting your services, which will make a lasting, positive impression.

6. Mobile Friendly Site

Sorry Madonna, forget “material world” this is the mobile world. Smartphones and other tablets are now the preferred method of Internet access among consumers. Because of this, visitors are going to be more likely to return a website that is mobile friendly. This especially means making sure the website theme is responsive so that it automatically adjusts to fit each device. Corporate websites should be compatible with mobile phones, tablets and desktops to reach as many customers as possible.

7. SEO

A corporate website will either rank in the search engines, or it won’t. It’s ranking is based on how well the content is optimized. Many new web designers today don’t think much about search engine optimization. Preoccupied with the visual appearance, they forget that  SEO is every bit as important as making the corporate website attractive. While design and content are essential elements of a successful website, if no one can actually find it, it’s useless!

The best way to up your SEO is to make sure your content and images are all aligned with the metadata, keywords, and tags on your site. Each page of a website should have a keyword emphasis, which is the core message of the page and the following content should support that message. This can be monotonous, so using an SEO plugin that will monitor keyword usage can sometimes be the best bet. If your website is designed in WordPress, using Yoast SEO plugin will not only tell you how optimized your page is, but it will also make recommendations on how to improve SEO value. There are also other great plugins available that offer additional tools for business.

While there are a lot of important components to an effective corporate website, including these 7 key elements can make or break your online reputation.

What are some other components of a corporate website that you find essential for success? Let us know in the comments section below!