How to create an effective Website strategy in 2023
Digital marketing allows businesses to reach out to a larger audience than ever before.
From using social media to promote your products to creating an up-to-date website that contains your story and explains what you offer – the opportunities to market yourself and convert leads are endless.
However, how do you ensure that your efforts at marketing online are working?
What is a website strategy?
At the core of your website, there is its function.
You didn’t create a site to make it pretty; you made it to boost your online branding and hope to convert leads.
As such, you need an effective website strategy – simply the online master plan that helps you get closer to achieving your business goals.
5 Tips on How to Develop a Successful Website Strategy
Here are some of the things you should consider when creating or updating your website strategy:
1. Identify the goals of your website
You would never create a product or a business without identifying its goals.
In the same way, you should never create a website without clear goals in mind.
Is your website supposed to highlight examples of your work for your clients?
Or should it just tell your story?
Or maybe it should promote your products while staying consistent with your online branding?
Whichever goals suit you best should be the basis for your website strategy and guide how you organize your site.
2. Structure your website content
Now that you know what should go on your website, you need to figure out how.
This is your chance to plan your content in a way that guides your visitors through your site and potentially incites them to take action.
The best way to convert leads is to make them feel like they are making an informed decision.
For this, you must provide enough information about your brand and products/services to help leads get to know you better.
Then, you let your compelling call to action do the job.
But before anything else, decide where your content goes. Figure out the number of pages your new leads might be interested in, and make it easy for them to find answers to the common questions and your CTAs to purchase your product or enquire about your services.
3. Understand your target audience
Of course, it’s impossible to predict your leads’ interest if you don’t get to know your target audience first.
The best way to tackle this task is to avoid thinking too broadly.
Being more specific is better.
If your website copy is too generic, it will struggle to speak to the kind of user who is interested in what you offer.
For example, if you’re a company that caters to businesses, but offers a product that’s especially helpful to those in e-commerce, then you would be better off targeting e-commerce businesses rather than making it about all kinds.
4. Think of your web design
Once you have your content ready, it’s time to think about how you’ll present it to your visitors.
Whether you’re a creative individual or are willing to invest in design, it’s good to check out the latest trends in web design for 2023 to ensure that your site appears modern and refreshing.
You will want to avoid creating walls of text across your website that discourage people from reading your content.
Instead, break your paragraphs with images and use graphics and videos to promote your products/services better.
You could try anything from introducing your business via a video or creating an interactive page that helps your leads better understand what you offer and how it can help them.
5. Create and share interesting content
Besides the content you create to introduce your company and highlight the benefits of your products/services, there is the content you create to keep your web traffic flowing.
Regular blog posts allow you to frequently re-direct people to your site by sharing your content across every online platform you have.
Plus, you can use this content to convert your leads.
How?
Simply create content relevant to your industry, and redirect your readers to your offering within the blog with a call to action.
Watch out, though, as the best way to do this is to be seamless in your promotion and to avoid turning every post into sales-oriented content.
Your CTA should be compelling while blending with the rest of the text.
Read more about CTA or “Call to Action” here
How to strategize your content
Like every business or professional online, you will likely create and share content across your platforms to raise brand awareness.
However, the way you plan, create and share your content matters.
Here is how you can strategize every graphic, blog post, and video you make for your website and social media platforms:
What is the goal of your content?
By now, you must have realised that your business goals are at the heart of your website strategy.
Why are you writing that blog post or creating that graphic?
Are you making it to incite people to buy your product or to assert your company as an expert in your industry?
Think about it.
By deciding on the goal of your content before making it, you can maintain your online branding consistent and also create more effective content.
Which keywords should you include?
Take the products/services you offer and your industry, and then identify the keywords your target audience uses to find you or your competitors.
Those keywords can inspire your future content and should be used seamlessly within your content to boost your website ranking and attract more leads.
What should your content be about?
When you work on planning your blog content, consider the industry you’re in, its latest trends, and what your product/service is about.
Take inspiration from all of these and do your best to provide actual value with every blog (without forgetting to add an excellent call to action that re-directs your readers to your offering).