For many businesses, a website is a major investment and serves as a primary marketing tool. As such, you want to design and build your website with your business’s growth trajectory in mind. In many instances, it’s much more cost-effective to build key platforms into the original design than to try and retrofit them later. The Waxahachie Chamber of Commerce can help you make the most of your ad budget with these insightful branding strategies.

Build For Today and Tomorrow

According to Orbit Media Studios, creating an interactive and compelling website that is representative of your business products and services is a fundamental part of your company's marketing strategy. 

When you developed your business plan prior to your business launch, you likely forecasted your business’s growth, and you’re wise to design your website with your key milestones in mind. For example, If you eventually want to have a blog or an online product catalog, ensure that the website build includes capacity for these functions, even if you're not using them right away. This will help ensure your site has the ability to expand and diversify as your business grows.

Integrate Various Tools

Consider integrating your customer relationship management (CRM) tools with your enterprise resource planning systems on your website. This allows your site to work well with your internal tools and will help optimize your internal processes. According to Business Partner Magazine, you’ll also want to understand the types of metrics tracking your site has the capacity for. It’s helpful to look back on analytics that show how people find their way to your site and how long they stay on various pages. This knowledge - combined with analytics from your social media and email marketing metrics - can help you maintain a robust and effective marketing strategy.

Drive Traffic to Your Site

Even the best built website needs to have traffic driven to it to be effective, and that starts with accelerating search traffic to your site by creating a user-friendly experience. You want to design your site to increase connections with consumers, and part of this includes making your website user-friendly so it is appealing to search engines. You can always use Google keyword planning tools to define what keywords are most likely to drive traffic to your site - this is known as SEO, or search engine optimization - which returns search results based on the types of words consumers use when searching the web. The higher your rankings, the more visible your business becomes. 

In addition to keywords, images can drive traffic to your site. However, it’s important that you upload specific file types. PDFs are the least searchable, and JPGs are the most compatible for SEO practices. So what if you have great content, but it’s in PDF? Check out this PDF to image converter. It’s a free and easy to use way to switch from your current format to the JPG your website needs.

Other Marketing Tools

Of course, part of having a robust online presence is having a recognizable brand that starts with a well designed logo, makes a strong first impression, and can help build brand awareness. It also allows you to stand out from your competition in the marketplace. Take care to ensure the logo you develop matches the brand you’ve established for your company - for example, maintain consistency in color, design, font and imagery.

Focus on Payment Systems

Another great option that comes with website design includes the ability to take orders via your site. You can avoid expensive credit card fees by enabling your website or app to take customer payments. Look for a system that works well for you and your customers. An online payment system will help ensure you’re paid in a timely fashion and customers can avoid overdraft fees by ensuring they have the ability to make the payments on your site. This can be integrated into your website as you begin to build. 

Focus on Payment Systems

When it comes to designing a website that can grow with your business and facilitate its advancement, focus on what you need now, but leave intentional space for future development. Being able to set the stage for your future growth in your initial web design can be invaluable. But no matter how you change your site, always have SEO in mind because a fantastic website can’t do anything if no one knows it exists.

Looking for business support in Waxahachie? The Waxahachie Chamber of Commerce champions our community’s economic and cultural growth through networking, events, and advocacy. Click here to become a member today!