Contents
- What is the purpose of a website
- What exactly is a website
- The purpose of homepages
- The purpose of informational websites
- The purpose of e-commerce websites
- The purpose of entertainment websites
- The purpose of corporate websites
- Choosing the right website for your business
- Questions to ask yourself
Has anyone asked you the million pound question of “What is the purpose of your website?” I am guessing so.
When it comes to deciding the purpose of your website, this can be difficult; especially if you are either new to business or to the digital world. Designing and producing a website takes a lot of time, effort and money. So knowing exactly what you want from your website will help your business create a strategic plan for the future.
You may be thinking that this seems easy to decide or maybe you have already decided and your website is booming with traffic and conversions. But this isn’t the case for everyone and some businesses find it difficult to pinpoint exactly what they want to achieve from their website.
What is the purpose of a website?
So before we get into the juicy information; what is the purpose of a website exactly? Well, a website is there to turn visitors into potential prospects, but it’s not that simple. You need to identify who visits your website – what are the user types? Then, you need to speak to them and help them take their next action.
You may have aced the amount of visitors your website has, but taking those visitors to their next step is what businesses find the most tricky. But having a clear and informative website will ultimately help you achieve that.
What exactly is a website?
Maybe you have been living under a rock and websites are a new topic for you or you have always seen websites as a taboo, but now you have decided your business needs one.
A website is an online presence where you can either have one or multiple pages that will be shown on the internet. There are many factors with websites, but the generic way a website is created is through a domain, which is the web address name you see at the top of your browser. You can get these through sites like GoDaddy or Fasthosts.
You then will have a theme and website design. This is one of the ways that you are going to attract any potential customers, as you want your website design to be visually pleasing but not too overpowering.
Here are some of the basic reasons why websites are created:
- To provide or sell a service/product
- To post information onto the web
- To create some web presence
- Or maybe to communicate with one another
- Purposes of different types of websites
The purpose of homepages
Think of your homepage as the blurb of a book. There is enough information about what it is, and what it is all about, but there’s not too much information so it doesn’t give the story away. This is basically what you want to do with a homepage.
The homepage is the face of your brand. You want to include snippets of everything your customer would need to take them to their next stage of the buyer’s journey. From the homepage, you want to help visitors get to different parts of your site and this page is where the design matters the most.
When designing a homepage, it is important to remember the purpose of your business and what you want to achieve. Use your homepage as the main navigation for site visitors. Make it clear to them what your business is and what your unique selling point is. Decide on a navigation structure and incorporate your brand’s colour palette, logo and images. Make your homepage as if you were designing your shop window and you want to entice customers in. But make sure you are telling the story in the voice of your business.
Take a look at The Body Coach, also known as Joe Wicks’, website. It entails everything you could possibly need from his website. It has bitesize snippets of different elements that his website deals with. First you have what he wants to sell; his plan. It then gives you snippets of what the service is and images which will entice a potential customer to read more. He has even included a video and a section of transformations. This is exactly what people want to see when it comes to fitness, as if there is no evidence that the product/service works then no one will want to buy it.
The whole flow of the page coincides with his aesthetic and follows an easy to read but visually pleasing layout. This is the perfect example to follow for when it comes to deciding your own homepage.
The purpose of an informational website
As the name states, an informational website is a website where it is full of information, so various resources and services tend to be updated in real-time. For an informational website you need to create masses of unique content. These sites tend to have complex structures, as they are designed for a large amount of visitors.
An informational website is there so users can find all the necessary information for a specific topic in one place. On these sites the information will be current and updated often. These websites will usually rank high within Google, as they will see the website being relevant and having the correct information for searches.
Take the NHS website for example. They have massive amounts of information for everything that could happen to a person. It will give you an overview of the problem, common symptoms and causes. But not only that, it will give you a diagnosis and how to treat that specific issue. This helps the user acknowledge their problem, but also gives them all the information so they don’t have to keep searching for an answer.
Purpose of an e-commerce website
The official definition of an e-commerce website is where customers can select, then buy a service or product from a catalog, which will then create an online order. It’s an online shop where you will produce then send products or services out.
The main reason people want an e-commerce website is to increase profits, which will therefore create a bigger brand. From doing this they will slowly begin to increase their brands popularity and with good marketing they can create a strong and attentive brand.
Another reason is to improve and strengthen the businesses position within its specific market for their goods and services. This helps to create brand awareness and it builds trust between the business and customer, leading to more custom.
It does sound like this brand is spoken about quite a lot, but Apple does their website well. If you take a look, they utilise their website space well, making space for videos and imagery. They include details of their products and services, making you feel as if you have all the information that you need. Their shop section is also done very well, giving you a clear and precise understanding of the product that you have purchased or are thinking about buying.
Purpose of an entertainment website
An entertainment website is created to ultimately entertain people visiting. These sites will usually entail information, images and interactive online services. From looking at these sites you can usually see bright images, entertainment, lots of animation, chatrooms, galleries, audios/videos and online games.
Entertainment websites have the main purpose of attracting visitors. They will make the design fun and unique so users are intrigued by the site, which will therefore create returning customers.
If your business is after a place to advertise, then doing this through an entertainment website can actually produce high conversion rates, as including a fun and vibrant banner will attract visitors back to your website; potentially purchasing your goods or services.
If you take a look at the press release for Gucci’s new lipsticks. They have created a website where they have designed a virtual pinball machine that you can play. They have decorated it using the brand new lipsticks as the levers. This is a fun way to put forward a new product or service. As you are giving the potential customer something to do, they will play the game then look at the product after, which will therefore create a potential sale. It’s also a good selling point as customers may tell friends or family about the game, which encourages them to start their own buyer’s journey.
Purpose of a corporate website
When it comes to a corporate website these usually will represent a business. These sites will include detailed information about both the business and it’s products/services. Corporate websites can sometimes have an e-commerce shop added so customers can purchase products or services. They also can include newsletters, polls and a forum.
When creating a corporate website, design will be your best friend because the website will be used to sell your businesses image. Always keep your company’s style in mind and let your visitors or partners know that you are confident with what you do.
The purpose of a corporate website is to build the brand’s image, then to help make visitors become potential customers. Not just customers, but also to find new partners for the business. This will help to establish the brand’s identity, making their business more well known.
The website can also be used to build a confident and effective communication basis for customers and partners, where sharing new ideas or products/services can easily be done. This will either be from a forum or a newsletter.
When looking into corporate websites the one that stood out for me was GSK. GSK is a pharmaceutical company based in London. From their website there is masses of information that is set at real-time. It has pages like their product section, where it goes into detail on what products they offer and who can use this product. The website is updated often to provide information about topics going on right now, for example Covid-19.
Choosing the right website for your audience.
So you know what a website is and a few different types of websites, but now it’s deciding what is right for your business. Well, this part might be tricky and you may have to think about what you want in the future from your business. Do you want to keep it local? Or maybe worldwide? Do you want to keep it online only or open stores?
You need to think of a precise plan that’s going to help your business achieve its goal, keep in mind any values you have. It might be handy to look at any competition and see what they do to make themselves stand out. Don’t copy, just use these to gain inspiration.
If you are going into an industry or maybe you are already in one where there are many of your businesses, look at how you can be different. Can you offer a lower price? Can you offer unbeatable customer service? Have you got a different selling point? These are all ways to make you and your business stand out, it just takes some time to incorporate and excel them.
Questions to ask yourself
Do you want to gain more business? How are you going to do it?
- Are you going to do cold-calls?
- Email potential customers everyday?
- Set a strict social media plan and utilise commenting on potential posts.
- Will you start some networking and build relationships?
- Maybe your website is going to be the main platform for business.
Those are just a few examples of ways you can help to increase business and having a website will help to achieve that. For industries that are more niche, businesses can get away with just having a website. But in more crowded markets, social media will then come into play. However this post isn’t about social media – if this is something you need to know more about, we have a post on how it can affect your business.
Do you want to gain more traffic?
- Are you going to increase your organic search?
- Maybe you want to increase the amount of visitors going to your social media posts?
- Do you want more readers on your blog posts?
- Or even higher open rates for your monthly newsletter?
There are lots of different ways to increase your traffic, but you will have to be determined to put in hard work and dedication to improving that specific platform. Check out this blog post by Crazy Egg which talks about increasing traffic to your website.
Do you want to improve the perception of your business in the market?
- Maybe you want to look bigger? Better? More advanced?
- Do you want more customers to leave reviews for your business?
- Does your advertising game need to be upped?
- Or could you do with monitoring and updating your social media?
Business perception can make or break your business and keeping a close eye on it will massively help you out in the long run. Utilise surveys, as these can gain you anonymous but honest reviews about your business. But don’t take the results to heart, take the recommendations logically for your business and incorporate them to make your business flourish. Read through this blog post that talks about how small businesses can improve their perception.
Do you want to improve customer service? How?
- Quick but efficient service?
- Detailed and lengthy service?
- Do you want to offer different platforms for your customer to get in contact with you?
- Do you want to improve your customer service skills?
If you want a successful brand that creates brand advocates, then customer service is going to be your best friend. No one wants to buy a product or service where they are treated poorly. Think about your previous experiences with both positive and negative customer service. I bet it’s easier to remember the bad? Take a look at what Survey Monkey recommends for improving your team’s customer service skills.
If you have made it this far, then I applaud you. Finding the purpose of your website is a difficult decision. I hope that you can take one bit of advice from this blog post, as nailing this will ultimately create more leads which therefore excels to more sales. Not only will your business be booming but you should be pretty happy with your hard work. Let me know what your business is doing currently or has done to determine what the purpose of your website is.
Megan.