In spite of what looks like an entirely new marketing landscape, the fundamentals of marketing still remain the same.
It is all about one’s user journey and more specifically, how to create awareness, interest and desire, all the way to the final conversion. Yet, now more than ever, audiences’ time and attention is quite fragmented and extremely short-lived. We are no longer present on only one specific platform, but rather on several platforms and touchpoints on the digital ecosystem all at once! Today, we are moving towards a multi-channel approach. With that in mind, there exists the owned, earned and paid channels.
The cornerstone of every business begins with your owned channels. Each individual channel has an effective way to drive engagement with the brand, but when all three come together, that’s where the real magic happens!
Here at Push, we recognise the opportunities paid and earned media has for any type of business. However, with the emergence of new technologies and the shift in our behaviour, especially after the Covid-19 outbreak, one cannot deny that to take charge of a brand’s growth plan, one must begin with the owned channels. This is an essential part of your marketing mix.
Within your owned media channel comes the emergence of social channels, blogs, videos, content, SEO, landing pages and websites.
Push began as a web design and development agency, so we’ve been building highly converting landing pages and websites for longer than we can remember! However, with the most recent incident in February 2020, it is vital that businesses are pivoting towards the latest digital marketing trends and that all starts off with your own website!
Entering 2021 With The Right Web Presence
As much as we’d love to believe things are going back to normal sooner rather than later, Covid-19 has tremendously changed consumer behavior and the way we interact online. Never before has online shopping, grocery deliveries or even at home service bookings been so prominent. Spending time at home has left us with no choice but to get online. So, how is all this possible? Well, direct contact and funnelling through websites!
Entering 2021, we’ve put together key pillars that enable you to fully optimise your website and lead to skyrocketing success in 2021!
The Key Pillars For Optimising A Website
Updating website content on a regular website is surely important, but alone, it simply is not enough. In the same way that technology evolves, so does a business and the needs of customers. You should be looking to redevelop your website every few years at the very least.
While updating your website, there are 6 core pillars to consider for 2021:
1. Design
Make it a must to find the right balance between a design that looks modern, yet simplistic, and easy for users to navigate through. Based on your top converting audiences, we design your website in a way that resonates with your targeted audiences. We look at everything from the brand guidelines, headlines, typography, colours and images, as well as the navigation.
2. Usability
One cannot deny that our attention spans have decreased. We are constantly looking for quick solutions and platforms that ease the process for us rather than complicate it. It is key to make sure that your UX (User Journey) is a smooth one for users to navigate through. Our goal is to minimise the number of touchpoints on a website and limit the amount of friction that a customer encounters, making the journey one that is completely smooth sailing.
3. SEO
This is where the marketing and technical departments should align. Our focus is to build friendly URL structures, so that search engines know what your page is all about. We run through a technical audit of the site to discover if there are any accessibility issues for search engines. The key focuses are site speed, linking profiles, redirects, and structure.
4. Mobile Speed
A slow mobile site limits your business in ways you cannot imagine. Google estimates that 50% of users leave a website that takes more than 2.2 seconds to load. That is an extremely short amount of time. Google takes your website speed as a metric for ranking you on the Search Engine. Better make it quick!
5. Content
Predictions indicate that by June 2021, 80% of the world’s Internet traffic will be video content. Yes, you will need to create content that is meaningful, punchy, authentic and educational, but the real question here is, how can we make it as interactive and visual as possible?
6. Integration
Not only do people leave websites that are slow to load, but nearly 8 in 10 customers stop engaging with content that doesn’t display well on their device. Making sure your site is responsive and optimised for mobile, laptop or tablet viewings is essential. People are constantly consuming content on multiple devices, as a result integrating your website design to fit all of these platforms is very important.
Why Is This Important?
Well, if your website isn’t as visually appealing as your competitors one and doesn’t result in high customer satisfaction, you may find that they are not taking the desired action. Having a website that lacks the main pillars, will greatly affect your overall marketing presence, as well as business success.
At PUSH, Every Project We Undertake Includes:
- A professional and bespoke designed website
- The website goes through a conversion analysis process from wireframe to design to the user journey
- A responsive design so your site corresponds to any device
- Competitor analysis and keyword research for SEO
- The use of evolutionary eye-tracking software to help the target audiences attention shift where intended on specific pages
- A dedicated Project Manager to oversee the design and development of your new website and provide a bi-weekly call to update you on progress
- The setting up of contact forms and integrating them with CRM systems if required
- SSL certificate that secures the information your staff and users exchange with the website
- Implementation of privacy policies, cookie policies, terms and conditions, and ensuring your site is GDPR compliant
- Aftercare packages
Final Thoughts
We recognise the massive shift in new media and so are pivoting towards the key essentials for 2021. As an integrated marketing communications agency, website design and development is at the core of what we do.
Creating a frictionless website experience should be the highest priority for every business in 2021. Companies that are winning right now are people who are moving fast to create frictionless experiences and looking at different dimensions.
We have developed an in-depth process which allows us to not only create websites that look appealing but more importantly, our team of experts design and develop the site and landing pages in a way to convert and sell!
Find Out More on our web offerings and claim your free website audit now through one of our website experts.