It’s no longer good enough for businesses and their brands to have brochure websites. Now websites have to work a lot harder – especially when it comes to establishing business creditability within the internet environment. An integral part of any solid website design is having navigation that’s easy to follow in order to access information and improve performance on the www.

Any solid website design should consider the following to perform well on the internet.

Allow for social media integration.
The evolution of website design has kept pace with the emergence of social media as well as the various blogging platforms that are now available. Opt for content to provide value rather than glitz and great flash animations, these tire quickly. Credible information not only promotes your expertise, it also increases your chances to get found.

Ensure you get found.
What’s the point of having a website if you can’t be found? SEO is as much a part of the development of a website design as the content. Keywords aren’t just for google ad words – they are the cornerstone of your website when it comes to getting found. Make sure you have your h1 tags enriched with keywords that will drive traffic to your site.

Be user-centric.
Make sure that viewers won’t be frustrated navigating your website. You need to keep that bounce rate % down and the enjoyment rate up!

Keep it fresh.
Google is known to change its algorithm quite often. However, good, fresh contest is the basic premise of google search engines. Make sure that your website provides fresh content, often and consistently. And it’s important that this content is relevant information. Add videos, whitepapers, develop ebooks or even publish how-to projects – anything to keep the integrity of the site strong and provide value to those who visit your site.

Build for tomorrow.
Just like urban planning, a website needs a good infrastructure to build upon. The front end of a website is what we in the marketing field describe as “fun”, but ultimately it’s the navigation and structure of the site that will enable your brand site to really perform.

Who goes there?
Having good solid traffic is great. But if you don’t know who visits your website, you’re only scratching the surface of what your website can do for your business. Make your website work for you – its part or your sales team. Have strategically placed calls to action where you can ask for a visitor’s information. Tie in your social media tactics by adding content like e-books, recipes, entertainment ideas, crafts or scientific white papers to download. But make sure you ask for the visitor’s information to create leads. There are a few good companies such as Hubspot that can assist you in data farming your traffic.

Be responsive!
In today’s competitive and fast paced world, where mobile is becoming the next best thing (if it isn’t already), your site must be responsive… in more ways than one!

Does your website measure up? Take a quick audit of your website against these basic suggestions and see how well your website really performs.