7 Non-Negotiable Elements of Every Small Business Website

Get these “must-have elements” on your website.

Do you know the purpose of your website?

Before I can talk about the necessary elements of your website specifically, I need to address the purpose of a website.

Gone are the days of your websites just being a glorified digital brochure for your coaching, consulting or small business. A website now has many jobs including :

• Getting found on Search Engines – The website should be optimised for search to help you get found online.
• Build trust – Your website is a key element to building trust. Once a prospect arrives at your website, it needs to validate the problems that they are looking to solve. Your website needs to function the way your customers need it to and expect it to.
• Educate Your Audience – Your website should teach people how to recognise their problems and challenges that are keeping them up at night.
• Inform – Once a prospect has found you and trusts you, you need to inform them on how you can solve their problems.
• Nurture – Often people need to come back to your website numerous times before making a purchase. Capture their email address and continue to create valuable content that is relevant to their stage in the customer journey to nurture them through to the sale.
• Convert – A conversion can be many things from subscribing to a newsletter, to calling you, to making a purchase on your website. Conversion opportunities need to be an element of the design of your homepage to help guide the journey.

In today’s world, your customer’s journey starts by researching online. People come to a conclusion on their own whether they are interested in buying from you far before you even realise you are being looked at.

You need to make sure you have a presence in these early research stages, and completing each of the jobs above will help you do that.

There you have it, my comprehensive list of website must-haves.

Today’s assignment: Use this to make an assessment of the missing elements on your homepage right now and create a plan to fix this!

Tomorrow we tackle your content plan – it’s how you generate leads today, but don’t worry, I’m going to make it super easy for you!

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