With the spike rise of startups in many fields, every single entrepreneur will be making the best use of the online tools to stand out from the crowd.
And as one of the main online presence channels, your startup website is the online face of your company which will use the social media channels to reach the targeted audience along with search engines and paid visits channels as well.
No matter how the visitors came to your startup website, eventually they will interact with it and you will need to deliver a good user experience to them to gain their trust first and then pitch your products and services to them naturally in a way that fits them without disturbing them.
As each startup should have its own website to enhance its online presence, your website will be competing with your competitor’s websites and you need to go above and beyond to stand out of the crowds.
To build a website that can really sell for your business, use these tips for a successful website for entrepreneurs :
Make it easy for your customers to understand what services are offering or what type of products are you selling.
Keep in mind that your customers mostly don’t have much time to spend on discovering what you offering on your website, so you gonna have to deliver your message straight to them once they open the site.
If you put yourself in your client’s shoes, consider that he is mostly busy and at the beginning just trying to understand if what you offering fits his needs, if it’s not what he is looking for then he would like to know that within few seconds from opening your website.
If what you offering doesn’t fit what the website’s visitors looking for then he will just close the tab, otherwise he will be more than happy to scroll down and discover the rest of your website, which will give you a clear chance to pitch your products and services.
Most of smart websites deliver their company message above the fold ( above the fold area is the part of the website that you can see once you open it without the need to scroll down) including what they offer.
While you working on the content of your website whether you hire a professional copywriter or even doing it yourself, make sure it’s obvious, simple and straight to the point, however don’t make it so obvious but not exciting or so vague and generic but catchy, try to set it in the middle and make it clever and catchy.
Before jumping to writing your startup’s message, make sure that you understand your audience first, you need to have a clear understanding of their needs, requirements, fears and problems they need solved.
The most important part about building up your startup website is to have a clear vision about your customers to make your website fit to what they expect to see, which is one major aspect of your online presence and this is how your brand will stand out to dive into the competition.
You need to include your unique selling proposition in your main startup’s message and make it clear as possible, if your startup field is a high competition market then you need to show off what really makes you different ? Why the client should choose you over the many other providers offering the same like you ?
Even if you are offering something unique and creative with a low competitive market, you still need to deliver a message that can let the customer know the value you will deliver to him and why he should deal with you.
As an entrepreneur you need to represent your company well enough to your targeted audience through delivering your message to them which included the value you will offer to the client.
A catchy clear message can’t be delivered without a good user experience and a good looking design.
You need to have a full clear vision of your targeted customer to tailor a website that brands your startup and deliver a clear message to your customer the best way that fits him and your business model too.
For example, if you are offering a medical product for doctors and facilities as a business to business model, you should consider “ Dilemma > Solution > Benefits “ layout, as your customer are certainly interested in knowing what he will get from you that can solve which of his needs or problems, how it will solve it and what type of value that will be added to him by your product which makes him choose you over anyone else.
Make your website more client center than product centric
Make your website concentrated more on the client not only on your own products and services, instead of promoting what you offer everywhere on your websites, focus more on the needs that can be fulfilled by your services or products.
Make your customer feel like she/he is in the right place, make him feel that you understand his needs, fears challenges he is facing, as the more you understand your client’s needs the more you will be able to deliver to him.
Instead of pitching straight to the client, explain what value you can add to him and how it can really help, at the end your client came to your website looking for a product or services and he is looking for a provider that can really understand and help him and that’s what does really matter to him.
Once the website’s visitors are interested in what you offering on your websites, they will start navigating through the homepage then the other sections and pages.
If it’s not easy for the customer to navigate to what he is looking for then that will mostly affect your image pretty bad plus it will leave a very bad first impression which will be hard to change later.
Imagine that a customer visiting your website and wants to contact you or request a quote/call online and he can’t figure out how to do so ? How you think that affect his idea about your startup.
As a successful entrepreneur your main idea that you built startup upon it is to add value and help other people, if you can’t even help them to navigate through your startup website to do something like contact you or reach a certain information about a product or service then how would he/she trust you ?
Also make sure you use the CTA ( call to action ) properly for better attraction, don’t over do it but always use when it’s needed.
For instance if your business offers a free quote or call to the potential customers then you don’t have to insert a CTA with each section as it will make your website looks like an ads board or a link farm website.
You can use a proper CTA for certain sections and possibly above the fold as well, make sure that you use a contrasted colors that gets along with your design and background colors to grab the visitor attention.
Make sure that you use real images of your products whenever it’s possible instead of stock images, there is nothing wrong with using stock images but if you keep using it with all sections of your website pages it will make it look like a ready made theme with it’s dummy data.
You can use some high quality stock images to make your website stand out, but at certain points you will need some screenshots of your offered products or services to deliver the right information for your customers and let them see what they gonna buy in real action.
In case of software product you can even offer a demo trials on your website to help you customer take decision easily, for physical products you will need to add as much images as you can for your products and you should also allow a zoom in functionality wherever it fits.
Don’t over design your website, only use all the design aspects to serve the main purpose of the website, which is delivering the right message to your client, also showcase products and services along with your portfolio and past client’s testimonial but that comes second.
Make sure you website design is simple and impressive, but not too simple that makes your clients feel like it’s an empty or under construction website.
Also use the colors that fits your brand along with your logo’s color too, don’t overuse many colors or over contrasted colors that can really bother your website visitors.
Don’t overuse the animation in your website which can really disturb your visitors which will lead to a very bad user experience, try to use it properly and only at sections that needs to grab the user attentions to some parts or CTA.
Adding a video to your website can come really handy in some situation, however you should not use auto-played videos as it can seriously disturb your customer.
A short straight to the point video can be really helpful in the above the fold area to explain what is your startup is all about but make sure it is inserted in the right spot to serve the reason for having it on the website.
Also it’s really preferable if you can add some short scenes of you offered products or services in real action which deliver your message and also pitch to the customer at the same time.
Since your website will be visited by a large diverse of visitors, each one will be using different device to browse it, so your website site must have a responsive design to be able to work properly on all mobiles and tablets plus on all the latest versions of all modern browsers as well.
Deal with your startup website as the online face of your startup, it should be straight to the point and self explained, it should deliver you message to your client once they open it without scrolling down.
Didn’t over design it and don’t make so simple as a plain website, just ask your designer to create a simple layout that is really good looking and deliver your message easily.
You overuse CTA or animations, add contrasted colors CTA at proper sections and you can also add some little animations to it if it will fit your design.
You can make use of videos if it can explain your products and services and also deliver your message in short period of time, and also try to use real screenshots of your products or services whenever it’s possible.