The success of a website is built on many critical parts that need to be considered by an organization. Its similar to any technology implementation where proper time and effort will ensure measurable returns to the business.

Here are some key guidelines to follow that will help ensure you build a successful and winning website.

Define your audience

Design the site for a set of potential customers who your product or service will best satisfy. Define who they are and break them down by persona, industry, revenue, number of employees, geographic location,  etc. to arrive at a specific group. The more granular you get, the easier it will be to effectively target your market. Your website content should focus on the solution your product or service offers to the challenges they face.

Build a user-friendly website structure

The structure of the website is critical to the success of the entire website, not only from the standpoint of search engines, but also to enable your site visitors to achieve their goals.

Its important to group information under each section logically, ensuring that it is appropriate to the topic. The top navigation labels need to be search engine-friendly as well as relevant to the sub-groups you create.

Professional responsive website design

Today the web is accessed via desktop computers, laptops, smart phones and touchpads. Your website needs to be designed and developed to adapt to all of these different platforms.

Develop a content strategy that is focussed to your buyer persona(The language and tone of your content will be defined by your buyer persona. Make sure you have the right resources within the organization to create quality content. Consider hiring a professional writer who can create content that resonate well with your audience.

Optimize your website for search engines

This is the place where you make sure all your title, description and keyword tags include the keywords you are targeting to drive traffic to the website. Every page of the site should have different titles, descriptions and keyword tags. A clean code and structure will help index the website in the right category.

Research keywords with professional softwares like Worktracker or the free Bing - keyword research tool. Create as many internal links with keywords that connect to another page of your website as you can.

Include web analytics

Including analytics on your site will provide you with the reports you need to check on the performance of the website. Google Analytics is a powerful performance tool to utilize, and its free. If you have a budget then signup for powerful marketing analytics softwares like HubSpot, Marketo, Infusionsoft etc.

Analyze, improve and update your website often

Once your website is launched, its important to analyze the performance of your website. Is your website bringing in the visitors you expect? Has your traffic increased since the release of your site? How many leads you are generating per month, What's the lead to customer conversion rate? Which pages are they visiting? These analytics help you improve your website as you move forward.

Successful websites are always evolving and perfection is a moving target. With that in mind, the key to determining the effectiveness of your site is interpreting the feedback you receive.

Make use of data to drive improvisation on an ongoing basis to help ensure your continued success.

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