Your business is growing as a result of the extremely hard work you’ve put in. But your current website fails to truly showcase how incredible your business is and how amazing your people are.
With our full-service corporate website build capability, we’ve helped numerous frustrated business owners transform their corporate websites, which grew their digital brand and truly spoke to their market.
For many, the thought of working from scratch to create a successful corporate website feels overwhelming. Where do you start?
Well, you start by sitting down with a digital marketing and websites expert… and by listening.
…to your market
“Listening to your market is your number one priority,” explains Brilliant Digital Founding Director Deb Croucher.
“What does your market want from your corporate website? What frustrations and dramas does your market experience when they look for a company like yours? Ask these questions to really get your head inside that market.”
…to HR
It’s important to listen to your company’s human resources team to know what they’re looking for in terms of recruitment.
“Your website is a massive recruitment tool, so it’s really important to help the HR department of your business out in this way,” says Deb.
…to key team members
There will be key team members in your business who will have opinions about what your website should look like and what it should entail, and it’s important that you listen to them.
“That being said, if you don’t ultimately focus most of your attention on your market, you’re not going to achieve a successful outcome from your corporate website,” says Deb.
…Google opportunity
Now, let’s move onto Google. It’s important to discover the search opportunities you have within your sector.
Deb explains: “You have to look at how much growth is possible. Chances are good you’ll discover growth opportunities in areas you didn’t even know existed. Go and find out what that opportunity is, because that will result in a successful website build.”
…social media
Have a holistic look at what you’re doing on social media, but also what your competitors are up to. “Spend time on social media to gain information and bring it to your depth of understanding of what your digital brand should be.”
…your competitors
Start by taking a good look at your local competitors and see what their websites are doing… but also look at competitors abroad, like the UK and US.
“They may not be your direct competitors, but you’ll learn a lot by looking at them. There’s a lot of great stuff happening – particularly in the UK. There are websites with amazing design and coding… you might get wonderful ideas which will cut a little time from your planning,” says Deb.
It’s critical that you spend a good amount of time in the planning stages of your website, because it will cut out so much unnecessary time and money in the later stages.
“Get your website structure down, determine your user journey as a base, get some understanding of the number of pages that are involved, the amount of content that needs to be written, the technical platform that you’re going to use, and also understand how you’re going to tackle the search engine opportunity.”
This is where the magic happens. But, as with any creative process, you need a few clear pointers to guide you through.
“You have to determine what skill sets you need in order to create your corporate website, what timelines you’re looking at, and you need some understanding of what this all is going to cost,” says Deb.
Building a website without a clear strategy is never a good idea.
This stage is crucial to the success of your corporate website. The biggest reason corporate websites fail is incorrect digital branding.
Deb explains: “If you don’t articulate correctly your value to your market on your website, it is going to fail. Full stop.
You’ll also collect all your brand collateral such as images, logos, colours, etc and decide which of these you are going to incorporate in your website and which need updating first.
Your brand language, or brand voice, tells you what your brand sounds like. It’s important to determine this and use this language throughout your website content.”
Your messaging is all the content that forms the guts of your corporate website.
There’s a list of things your content should be, but most importantly… it must be market-specific, engaging and optimised for search.
“My advice is to write a lot of content before you start with the website design and build. Because only once you know what you want to say, can you build a platform to house that content. Remember, the content is driven by the market. Get the content right first.”
A good corporate website should include certain key messaging pages – all optimised for search:
Using a wireframing tool or even a simple framework, pin down the user journey through the site.
Our website content framework should give you a good understanding of what your website’s user experience should look like.
The hard truth is, your website will fail if it doesn’t offer a great user experience.
This is the fun part, where you create the visual wow factor for your website.
“At this stage, you’ve got enough information about your market, brand, content, UX, etc, to make sure your website design hits home,” says Deb.
Your website design should also be professional and consistent. What do we mean by this? Whatever you design on your website must follow through to your social media, newsletters, digital ads… and everything else about you in the digital space.
The quality of your website’s coding is crucial. Make sure you hire professionals who have a track record in coding.
“And I can’t emphasise enough how important it is to find a website coder who codes for search engines. If your website is not visible to Google, all your work will be for nothing,” Deb concludes.
Getting that brilliant corporate website you’ve always wanted that connects well with your market and finally communicates your worth needn’t be an overwhelming task.
If you partner with a digital solutions provider that is a thought leader and offers professional, full-service solutions, the process should be smooth.
Brilliant Digital has a track record of building corporate websites that are tools to turn businesses around. Read what some of our long-standing clients have to say, and read more website design blogs.
Get in touch with us today to start the conversation.
Our team has the skills and expertise to help your business develop a strong digital presence and increase its market share.
Let’s start a conversation today about becoming your digital growth partner.