If you have a website or a blog, is it successful? Is your website design professional? If it is, is it actually helping your business reach its goals and objectives? If not, you have to change your game plan and think strategically about your target audience and what you want them to do on your website. Most businesses and brands don’t do this because they think it’s the norm to just have a website. It’s not. It’s a business tool and it can work for you.

To have a successful website that works for you is a goldmine. It will set you apart from your competition and make you stand out from the crowd. It’s getting more difficult everyday in the online world. In these tough economic times, your website can help you reach new customers, retaining existing customers, and also build brand awareness for your business. Your website design is only part of the plan. If it wasn’t build with a strategy and a clear plan, what is the point of website design? Find below a couple of tips on how you can optimize your website so that it starts working for you.

Website design tips

Target audience: With your website design, always focus on your target audience. Don’t build your website for everyone. The days are over where you can only build it and people will come. When a visitor arrives on your website,  they are usually looking for answers to problems they have. Understand your target audience so that you can answer them. If you can help them, they can become your next customer.

Brand image: Your website design should mirror your business. If you are selling wedding dresses, your website design should be around wedding dresses. Your website design should be relevant and consistent with the branding of your niche. If you are focused on doing business with corporate customers, don’t design your website to look like a circus.

Call to action: Once a visitor arrives on your website, what action do you want them to do? Place visible call to actions on your website that can be seen and that are easy to follow. Your sales funnel should be easy to complete and don’t place hurdles in your visitors path to complete an action.

Trust: People like to do business with people that they trust and know. Make sure you have all the information about your business visible on your website so that your visitors can see you are not a fly by night business. Place your address bar in your footer on every page. If you are associated with other businesses, ask them if you can place their logos on your website. Trust is the key with having your website successful.