Creating a website can be quite an exciting endeavour – and launching it even more so. Seeing it go live can be very rewarding. A culmination of strategic planning and design being shown to the world. That being said, you should do everything in your power to ensure it works before it goes live.
We see so many people spend all their time on designing their site, making it look appealing, only to disregard the important technical details that make their site actually work.
There is so much more to a website than how your homepage might look.
That’s why we created this comprehensive website checklist. Below we have outlined the 10 most important items any service based business must include in their website to ensure its success.
Content that makes sense to your buyer (and an easy-to-use CMS so you can update it!)
This is the most important part of your website – the content within it. Think about what your buyer needs to know about you and your services. What are they looking for? Make sure your nav is clear and simple!
Mobile Friendly
Your site must work first and foremost on a mobile phone. It must be easy for big fingers to navigate around and to take actions – browse around, signup, fill in forms, buy from you! Then it also needs to be responsive so that regardless of the device, it still looks good.
This is not only because mobile is how the majority of searches are made these days, but Google also punishes websites that aren’t mobile friendly. Google has a strong focus on mobile-first indexing, meaning that it will rank unresponsive websites worse than those that are.
Email Signup capture
Always be building your list! With increasing privacy concerns around tracking and retargeting, the best way to get in front of your audience is via their inbox!
Blog
A blog is an essential tool for any service based business. This gives you the ability to attract more people to your site via indexing for more search criteria, and it also helps you create authority in your market by sharing information and expertise.
Landing Page(s)
A landing page is a page dedicated to your viewers taking a specific action. It is great for lead generation – especially for people being encouraged to join your list or to book an appointment/request a quote.
Don’t distract them – guide them to what you want them to do!
Modern Design
Most websites today follow a similar layout structure, this is perfectly OK. Using a template to design a website is not a bad thing. Templates have been tested multiple times across multiple browsers to just work. This is how modern design functions – you do not need to be “creative” to be modern.
Call to Action
This is one check you cannot afford to ignore – ensuring the site has clearly defined calls to action. What do you want them to do? Make it obvious and easy for customers to take the actions you want – such as sign up to your list, get in touch, click to another page etc.
Contact Information
Make it easy for people to contact you, ensure that phone numbers, addresses, social media accounts and your business hours are visible – don’t make it hard for people to do business with you!
Not only does a contact page allow visitors to get in touch with you, it also adds credibility and improves the trust quotient of your website.
Analytics
Make sure you are tracking site visitors and actions on your website. You can’t know how well (or otherwise!) your website is converting if you have no idea how many people are going there in the first place.
Google Analytics allows you to monitor the general profiles of your site visitors, what devices they use, your most popular pages and products, user behaviour and engagement, conversion rates, how fast your site loads, the sources of traffic and so much more.
Reviews/Testimonials
Make sure you have some testimonials on your website and if you sell products, embedding a review tool into your site is very valuable – as scary as that might seem – have faith in your products and services.
Launch your website with confidence
We’ve spent years fixing other people’s website mistakes. From forms that don’t go anywhere, to not being able to use it on mobile, to content that doesn’t track well, plus many many more issues that could have been easily avoided.
This checklist is the answer.
Use it to ensure your website is both perfect for the viewer and working properly behind the scenes.
Click here to download our compact version that you can save to your computer and easily have on hand while working on your website.
Alternatively, if you’re not so into the tech side of things and would rather someone just do it for you, get in touch today and let our team work their magic!
