Structure of an Effective Website 2024

December 11, 2023

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Front Page

You only get one chance to make a good first impression, and the same goes for your company’s website. When potential customers first stop by your site, they should instantly have a clear understanding in what you offer and who you are. A relationship between client and a business is based on trust, and here are five things you absolutely need on the front page of your website.

Contact Information

Advertising research group BIA/Kelsey have shown that nearly 75% of small business websites don’t have an email link on their homepage, and 60% don’t have a phone number.
At the least, you should have a clear email link and phone number for feedback/questions from potential and existing customers.
If you have a physical location, include the full address with the state and zipcode.

Images and a Portfolio of your work/products

If you sell hardware tools or wedding cakes, your front page should have a revolving photo bank of the tools or cakes you sell. Don’t use irrelevant graphics as they are generally seen as tacky and irrelevant. Show your own work and have images which translate to the quality of work you do.
Display images nicely and make them seamless within your front page.

Clear Navigation

Your frontpage should have a clear navigation system across the top or on the left side of the front page.
Buttons should be displayed clearly and marked with words that correspond to your content.
Create buttons that include shipping options, an FAQ and an About page.
Make sure to check on your website everyday in order to see if your links are working properly and to resolve any 404 errors that may occur. Broken links reduce your SEO ranking on Google’s search list.

Email Newsletter

An effective way to incentivize customer loyalty is with a regular newsletter. Placing a signup box on your front page and offering rewards such as discounts on future orders can create more traffic and more sales as well.

Social Media Links

Make your social media accounts cohesive before you do this. We want to make sure each account has the same content spread out evenly for new posts.
Social Media also helps customers stay in touch with new updates and new products on your website.
Use icons for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest and LinkedIn. You don’t have to do all, but the more you have allows for more content to be seen and more eyes on your business.

One of our specialities here at Clear Bounce is also website development and hosting. Feel free to call and contact us regarding the creation of the platform for your online webstore. We have experienced developers who can do everything that we have mentioned before, and then some. Call or email about a free consultation and how we can get everything up and running for you.

About Page

What type of customers are visiting your About page? Most likely, they’re prospective customers looking to understand your background and your company’s virtues. As mentioned earlier, trust between a client and a business is paramount. Customers want to see if your company is one they’d like to do business with. Here are some questions you need to answer, and then you can use this information to form your About page.

Is your company big or small?
Is it public, private, or family owned?
How long have you been in business?
Who is your leader and is at the helm?
Where are you based?
What is your Value Proposition?
What makes your company unique?
What are your core values?
Why should customers buy from you and not your competitors?
What is your long term goal?

You can also look up your favorite websites and look at their About pages to get some inspiration to help you write your own.

Here at Clear Bounce, if you take time out of your day to speak with us, we can also write up an About page summary about your business, with as many revisions as you need.

Product Page

There is a common mistake that comes up when writing product descriptions, and even professional copywriters make this mistake: writing product descriptions that simply describe the make and material of your product. Great product descriptions need to demonstrate the lifestyle of your ideal buyer persona, how it will make your clients happier / lives easier, and most importantly, be search engine optimized.

Here are eight simple ways to convey your product’s greatness to your customer base.

Focus on Your Ideal Buyer

Remember our topic about buyer personas? This is where everything you wrote about them and your research will come in handy. The best product descriptions allow you to target your ideal customer base clearly and personally. Choose the words your ideal buyer personas uses. Use the word you.
Consider and focus on how you would speak to your ideal buyer if you sell your product to them face to face. Now incorporate that language into your e-commerce site so you can have a similar conversation online with a warm and personal touch.

Entice your benefits

When we sell something that we have created, we get excited and cheery about how great our product is. We live through our business and our products.
However, potential customers don’t often care about mundate features and specs. This is where you have to entice them and address their biggest pain points, and how you can solve them.
Highlight every benefit imaginable, and how it relates to your ideal customer’s life.
Ask yourself this: how do your product make your customer feel happier, healthier, or even more productive? What problems does it solve and what can it do for their day to day life? Sell your experience, not just the item.

Avoid Bland Phrases

Think about this, the moment a potential buyer reads excellent product quality, they always think “Yeah, yeah. Everyone says that.”
You don’t entice your customer base as much when your product description has a lot of “yeah, yeah,” statements around it.
To avoid this reaction, speak from the heart. Be as specific as possible. Narrow down each intricate part of your product but relate it with excitement on how it can help your customer. Technical detail + benefits + excitement = great product descriptions.

Appeal to your potential customers’ imagination

Selling something online means that your visitors can’t hold your products. Better pictures and videos can help, but there is a trick to increase desire for your product: using the word “imagine.”
Start using this technique by starting a sentence with the word “imagine” and finish your sentence or description by explaining in depth how your customer will feel when owning and using your product everyday.

Include Mini-stories

Small stories regarding other customer’s experience with your product and services builds character for your brand
When it comes to telling a story about your products ask yourself:
Who is making the product?
What inspired making the product?
What obstacles did you need to overcome to develop the product?
Was there any testing relating to your product?

Usage of sensory words

The restaurant and food industry have been using sensory words for a long time, as they engage more brain processing power.
Create an image in your client’s mind with vivid product descriptions.
Words that insinuate touch like smooth or light are good examples of sensory words.

Using Social Proof

Shoppers often use suggestions or reviews of others when they are trying to decide to buy your item or not.
The product with the highest number of positive reviews often sways opinion and makes the sale smoother as past customers help potential customers understand the product and its uses.
Most customers are attracted to buying something that is popular and highly rated. Ensure that you highlight best sellers to take advantage of this mindset

Make your descriptions bite-sized

Entice your web visitor with bold headlines
Create bullet points which are easily consumable
White space is your friend, use it often.
Increase your font size to help with readability and to catch a potential customer’s eye

Finally, share your knowledge about your product. Tell stories and explain even the tiniest details. Make an effort not to be boring and instead delight your web visitors with seductive descriptions. Most of all, write with enthusiasm because your passion for your products is contagious.

Here at Clear Bounce, we also offer product description writing as a service. We know it can be difficult starting an online business, but we can help make a story and give life to your products.

Service Page

The product description topic from earlier has a lot of points that are shareable with a Service description page, a lot of parts are interchangeable but here is a formula that you can use hand in hand with what we have taught you earlier.

Highlight the Problem or Issue your service can solve

Show with clarity that you understand the problem your potential customer or client is looking so solve.
Make this concise and show that you are here to help graciously.

Pain Points

Level out the pain points a potential customer is feeling by not using your service.
Make it feel close to home by using real world examples if you let a problem subsist and continue.

Offer your solution

Show how, and how fast you can get your services done, at a reasonable price.
Focus on your benefits over your features
Include add-ons that you recommend alongside your service for extra compensation.

Trust

Provide samples of past work done so they can see the quality of work you have finished before.
Provide Proof of results: you can reduce the customer’s sense of risk by providing the great results you have done in the past (goes hand in hand with past samples)
Testimonials and Reviews: Have past customers and clients sell your service for you. With built in customer reviews and testimonials, building trust becomes simpler. As mentioned in our product description section, highly rated reviews help tremendously.

Sales Pitch

Invite them to place their order. It’s as easy as writing “Call in for a quote today!”
Any call to action helps, if you end your description with an invitation to do business, they’re more likely to choose you then and there.

Now armed with knowledge towards Service and Product Descriptions, let’s move on to creating a Blog / Content page.

Blog / Content Page

In 2020, you simply cannot ignore the great opportunity blogging and content creation has for your business.

20% of internet users’ online time is spent on content
68% of people spend time reading about brands that interest them
57% read content marketing titles at least once a month
80% of people appreciate learning about a company through custom content

Blogging and content marketing allows you to tell a story that connects with your customer base. It becomes more personal, as it is less about selling and closing deals, to more about building trust and a relationship with your client base.

Blogging allows others to read on how to solve their pain points – either with your services or products. Make sure to ask yourself the reason “why?” you are blogging in the first place.

You can definitely make money with it, but is that really helping out your customers? Ask yourself these key questions when you begin writing out content.

Are you trying to help solve problems or pain points with your blog?
Is the blog meant to illustrate your skills or expertise in a particular niche?
Are you using your blog to improve your SEO for a certain topic?
Is the blog meant to improve your bottom line, or generate brand awareness?

Here are six simple steps to help you navigate your thought into written expression.

Your Target audience

To determine your target audience, find out the answers to these following questions
What is the gender, age and income of my perfect audience?
Where does my ideal audience member work, and what do they do for fun?
In what area does my audience want to grow and improve? Do they face challenges and have pain points?
Where does my audience get information, and where do they spend a lot of time (online and offline)?
What do I want my ideal Buyer persona to see?

Using previous work about Buyer personas helps you find and target your customers and readers a lot easier.

Your Value

Providing insight, information and character brings value to your business and your product/services. When writing your blog content, offer something more than just a well written sales pitch.
Are you solving a problem of theirs or guiding them to the solution?
Is your insight something that they cannot find anywhere else?
What is something unique about your company that you can demonstrate through your blog?

Find your Voice and Tone

Over 70% of consumers prefer getting to know a company via content marketing rather than ads.
With using a blog you create a dialogue between yourself and existing/potential customers.
Again, using your ideal buyer personas, create a tone and voice that correlates with your brand and target audience.

Measuring Success

When you write your business blog in order to improve your Search Engine rankings on Google, make sure you incorporate these following metrics:
Blog readership
Page rank based on your SEO focus keyword(s)
Organic website traffic to the blog page
Outbound and inbound link clicks

However, if your end goal was to increase/drive sales, your key metrics must also include:

Sales calls to a direct phone number
Link clicks on a blog URL
Email subscribers
Product conversions

Make sure to assign specific details and be goal oriented with your blog as well:

Instead of saying: I will post content on my blog every month, which is broad and non-specific, try this
I will post a 3 keyword optimized, 2,000 word blog article every week for 52 weeks.
Strive for consistency and the organic traffic will follow.

Call to Action

Your call to action can be anything, but go back to the reason why you started blogging in the first place.
Call your target audience into action by subscribing to your newsletter or take a look at the new items you mentioned in your post.
Call on your audience to follow your brand and company on your social networks.
Or the simplest call to action, ask them to leave a comment/feedback.
Make sure to clearly and carefully think about your call to action!
To help inspire your writing, look up some of your favorite brands/blogs and see how you can emulate their style.

Gaining exposure

Your goal for your blog is to not only educate and call others to action, but to gain exposure. Every great blog requires

A focus keyword to drive organic exposure
Backlinks to illustrate your relevance
Insights and research to demonstrate your knowledge.
Every new blog post or content created needs to spread out between your social networks.
Each post will need to be consistent on its delivery time and promotion over time.

To make each blog post promotion successful you will need:

Compelling headline/title
Focus keywords
Optimized meta description and URL tag
Shareable content (text quotes and/or images)
Social sharing buttons

If you combine all these tips seamlessly, your exposure will increase organically. Not only will this help your existing/potential clients learn about your company, but they can use it as a resource for whatever goods/services they are comparing with yours. With time and effort alongside outlined goals, you’ll find consistent return for the investment of your time. Blogging should be fun and authentic. Make sure you have good energy towards what you are writing, and you can sprinkle all the analytical stuff after you’ve given out help.

If you look within our Service Menu, we offer Blogging and Article writing at Clear Bounce as well. We make your posts seamless, and on a revolving timeline suited to how much you want to post. All we need is a simple phone call for you to describe what content you would like to write about. We make it easier for you to run your business and get more organic traffic to your website.

Reviews / Testimonial Page

When creating a testimonial/review page, your priority is to improve on your brands value and authority. Social proof for products and services help build trust and can sway potential customers on to your side of the market. To work properly, client endorsements should describe how your products work for them and how well they worked for them.

Here are three tips on how to create a perfect testimonial/review page.

When asking for testimonials, write out a form for what you want your happy client to write about.

Tell a story about how your product solved a pain point

Allow your client to tell a story about how your product relieved a pain point for your customer. Certain things like clothes or furniture can’t really solve problems, but they can be described as how they make your customer feel or the quality of the object itself.

Ask for Photos

Using real photos allows potential clients to see if others that are similar to them are buying your product. This mentally creates a situation for themselves where they can see themselves using your product/service. If something is similar, they might ask themselves why they aren’t using your product/service.

Hire influencers

In this age of social media, having someone with a gigantic following can surely help promote your brand and your company. Although this can be pricey, if you want someone with upwards of 10,000 people following them, and is someone that coincides with your brand, it might be a great way to advertise your goods and services.

Well designed testimonial pages with reviews can spur about more sales and more connections for your company. People can see that others have trusted your company to do business, and it builds an additional layer of trust for your clients.

When designed professionally, client and influencer endorsements will bring back a sizable return. If you don’t have testimonials or reviews just yet, the easiest way to start is by doing a free trial on Yelp or asking close friends and family to speak about how great your products/services are. Look at some of your favorite brands and see what their testimonial page looks like, and see what route you can take that works best for your tastes.

Contact Page

As we pointed out earlier within the Front Page section, having your business phone number, physical location, and email address are key for potential clients to reach out to you. However, we can take your Contact form to an even greater and more personable level.

First off, look at some of your favorite brands’ contact page and see what they are doing for it. Write down what you liked about each one, and disregard what you didn’t like.

Secondly, here are some best practices when filling out your Contact Page

No unnecessary questions. The more fields your customer has to fill out, the less likely that they’ll finish the form entirely.
Why should your potential customer reach out to you? Explain to them what you can help them with.
Reassure after the filling out of forms that you will contact them back. The faster you follow up, the faster you can close a sale. Let them know how long it will take for someone in your company to reach out.
Use smart forms. Smarts from switch up fields and collect the right information each time.
Include a Call to Action or maybe even an incentive to sign up. Not everyone who visits your contact page will reach out – give them a reason to for the future.
Make sure your contact page complements the rest of your website. Be sure to design your contact page to fit with the rest of your website’s theme.

The better your contact form is, the easier the follow up will be. If contacting you is incentivized, make sure to talk about how that discount or offer can help your potential customer alleviate a pain point. Most of all, be sure to stay organized and respond. The worst thing that can come from giving a potential customer the cold shoulder is a bad review about your company’s customer service.

Here at Clear Bounce, we can create all the pages that we have mentioned before within this book, and we can make it match with the theme and style of your company. We have an all in one cohesive package for website development, and we would love for a shot to help elevate your business. Feel free to contact us anytime regarding a consultation.