1. Improve your business results
Your website is likely to be at the heart of your marketing strategy and the central place to which you will draw your prospects and customers. Internet search has become the method for us all to find the products and services we want. Your website and its content will influence where you appear in any search and anybody who is searching will end-up back on your website. If your business is predominantly done offline it is still highly likely your customers will still expect to see you and find valuable information about you online. According to research by Salesforce Deskfacts 90% will check your website before emailing or calling you. Also BCG indicated that by 2016 two trillion pounds of the UK’s business, up by 50% on 2010, will be done on the web (see our blog article ‘Are you ready for more internet growth?’ for more detail).
2. Improve the perception of your business
The improved visual design of a modern website establishes the initial perception of your brand and therefore your business. Your brand and business values will influence whether prospects will buy from you. Attractive ease to navigate websites with must have content will reduce website bounce rates (where someone comes to your site and immediately leaves) and increase prospect engagement, leads and orders.
3. The heart of your integrated online presence
The latest open web standards and off of the shelf web applications allow modern websites to be easily and fully integrated with your other online presence (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, PInterest, etc., etc.) enabling maximum interest in your business across the entire web. The centre of your truly integrated online digital presence enabling two-way dialogues with customers and prospects and integrated across the web with RSS feeds, social media feeds, etc. Applications such as dlvr.it enable you to simply link your website blog with your online social media presence.
And there are many more tools like this that you can use too, in fact, here is a definitive guide of the best social media tools for 2021.
4. Improve interest in your business; lead capture and conversions.
Compelling calls to action, registration forms and unprecedented flexibility in the presentation of different customer-engaging media - Flipbooks, web applications, videos, presentations, brochures, catalogues, blogs and online ROI calculators, to name but a few - will help you generate interest in your business and capture the details of those interested. Once you have ‘captured’ your prospects your aim is their progression through the sales process to convert prospects into business. Your website can be structured to support the different stages and content needed to progress through each stage of your sales process to maximise your prospect–to-order conversion rates.
5. Provides a compelling return-on-investment
For many customers only one or two additional sales orders are necessary to cover the cost of a new modern website. See how some of our customers have seen a powerful and compelling return on their investment.
6. Any device access maximising users of your site
A modern responsive website will be optimised for mobile devices enabling enjoyable website access for your likely 25%-plus mobile device (Smartphones and Tablets) visitors. At the end of 2012, according to the ITU, there were a staggering 6.8 billion mobile subscriptions globally. That is equivalent to 96% of the world population so it is no surprise mobile smart phones are becoming a primary means of accessing the internet.
7. Ease to administer; optimising productivity and cost of ownership
The latest Content Management Systems, such as Modx, are extremely easy to use and manage; reducing your administrational overhead and cost so providing you with a much lower total cost of ownership over the life of your website. A powerful and flexible content management system will also mould itself to your specific design requirements.
8. Security
The IT world is always evolving and changing. We constantly update the software on our PC’s to ensure we remain secure and safe when online. Your website is a software application that needs to be kept up-to-date too so valuable product and customer data isn’t compromised or your site taken offline by unwanted spammers and hackers.
9. Usability and persuasiveness built into its core design
Well-structured, persuasive, ease to navigate and attractive modern websites using an appropriate mix of media will provide an enjoyable and valuable customer browsing experience.If a site is poorly designed or difficult to use visitors will simply leave.
10. Optimised for search engines
Search engine algorithms constantly change and evolve. Knowing your company’s key words and producing content that is aligned with the latest search requirements will help you put forward your best foot maximising interest in your company, its offerings and its position in search results.
11. The latest standards and compatibility
Standards constantly evolve (e.g. web 2.0, XML, HTML5) and the standards brought by modern web technologies bring new features and business benefits. As browsers constantly evolve dated websites may not display correctly.
Using the latest standards, such as W3C HTML 5, is also very important for accessibility and overall performance. Commonly used screen readers, for the deaf, often require the latest standards. Google may penalise sites that aren’t built to the latest standards deteriorating search engine result performance.
With HTML5 it is possible to embed video, audio, animations and quality drawings, along with other rich content without the use of plugins or other third party programmes as the functionality is built into the browser. HTML5 enables the use of improved and fancier forms then was previously possible and makes easier application with front-ends, drag and drop tools, discussion boards, wikis and other useful elements.
12. Legal Compliance
Modern sites will also be built to comply with legal requirements, for example, meet the EU law requirements for cookie usage along with other approval, certification and security requirements too. The EU e-Privacy Directive was introduced in 2012 for websites to be open about the type of cookies they used to track visitors.
13. Detailed transparency placing you in control
Today’s powerful web analytics provides your radar of what’s happening and places you in full control enabling you to take decisions to improve and generate more business.
14. Can be integrated with your other business processes
Today’s modern application programming interfaces and open standards enables the modern website to truly become an online window into your business and can be deeply integrated with your marketing, sales, supply and customer service processes.
15. Options that meet simple to highly complex business needs
A modern website enables the addition of powerful new optional features that makes your site more engaging and relevant; personalisation of pages to align with the needs of specific groups of users, microsites, presenting only content that users are entitled to view and progressive profiling of visitors to build data and align with their preferences are just a few of the many possibilities that can be built into today’s modern websites.
Scorchsoft Design & Development Services:
- Content managed websites: Take control of your content. We pick from several market leading content management systems so you get the best solution for your project.
- Web applications: From lead generation to internal process automation. Well positioned web apps can boost productivity and yield high returns on investment.
- Bespoke web solutions: For when your website or web system has to work exactly the way you need it to. No compromises. The bespoke option is always the most flexible.
- Website design services: First impressions count. Well-designed websites ooze credibility and well positioned calls to action support visitor conversion.
- Mobile responsive websites: Optimising your site design for mobile devices improves user experience and better positions your key marketing messages and calls to action.
- Systems Integration: Enable your different web/software tools to communicate. Significantly reduce admin time whilst also boosting process quality and consistency.
