Five elements your website needs and why. Bearing in mind, that these five aren’t the only elements you need. Now, you can’t just slap these components on a website and create something great.

You will still need some solid web design, good usability and ease of navigation, plus you definitely want to make sure your design, copy, and code are developed using effective principles of search engine optimisation.

1. Clarity

When people are searching the internet for a service or business, they are only looking for one thing, an answer to their search. So when they arrive at your website it should be immediately clear to the user what you do, and who you are, remember they are looking for the service you provide, more often than not, who you are is secondary to them.

2. Accuracy

Once the user has arrived at your website,  you need to make it clear that your site will answer their question as efficiently as possible, or at the very least show that they can obtain a more explanatory answer by contacting you. If a user cannot establish your site has the information they require they will leave, and they won’t come back.

3. Opt-in Box

Capturing your visitor’s contact details is essential for your online marketing. An opt-in box allows the user to enter their name and email address (and more), you can then begin to build a relationship with your subscribers via email marketing. Offering an incentive will encourage people to Opt-in.

4. A blog

Adding a blog to your site will give you the opportunity to add content to your site, promoting your products or services, offer advice and tips, and generally keep your customers informed, as well as improving your search results. Having the blog combined with email marketing means you can redirect your e-shots to your full blog posts, creating snappier emails.

5. Contact information

Your contact information (a phone number, email link & link to your contact page) should appear on every page in the header, and again in the footer (this saves people having to scroll back up).

Your contact page should also feature your physical address if you don’t users may become suspicious. Most customers would prefer to deal with local companies but not always, so a long-distance business relationship is not as much as a put off as not showing one, In fact, you are legally required to show your address on your website.