As companies fight to attract more traffic to their websites, it can be easy to forget that a strong, user friendly website is equally as important as SEO.  If users arrive at the website and their visit isn’t optimal, even a high volume of traffic won’t benefit your company.  Your company’s website can be its window to the world and, for many if not most customers, it’s the primary means of communication with potential customers.  As such, it’s essential that a company’s website not just attract new users, but also educate them when they arrive and then capture their information and create a valuable lead.

The first goal of any company website should be to attract new business.  Websites can be an essential element of marketing and it’s important that your website puts your company’s best foot forward.  However, this extends well beyond simple SEO.  Netting the most possible traffic for your website is important, but it’s just as important to keep those potential customers there once they’ve arrived.  This means a careful balance of pleasing aesthetics and SEO.  Your website must look good to the customer without being too overwhelming or busy.  This requires utilizing your sites primary real estate to promote your companies branding.  Short and simple messages about your product will help prime potential customers, and easy navigation will make it simple for them to find what they’re looking for.

Of course, the purpose of bringing new business to your website should be to educate them about your product.  The best method of doing this is, again, keeping it simple.  Don’t make potential customers work for the information they want; keep it easy to access and easy to interpret.  Any potential lead should be able to quickly and easily navigate your site and shouldn’t have any trouble understanding the information provided.  Keep the language broad and simple, avoiding any jargon or lingo that might not be clear to the average consumer.

Finally, it’s important that your website not create interested customers only to let them navigate away without first creating a lead that can be used to generate new business.  Your website should provide a simple form that can be filled out with as much or as little contact information as the lead is interested in providing.  By doing this, your website can find strong leads and create new business.  Not only can you potentially capture new information, but this information will be coming from a lead that willingly provided it.  These leads are already interested in your product and ready to be closed, making these leads extremely valuable.

A strong customer-oriented website isn’t just valuable to your company, it’s also of great benefit to the consumer.  The internet now provides potential customers of almost any industry with a virtually unlimited research tool at the tips of their fingers.  When a website offers the opportunity to leave contact information, the consumer can educate themselves on the product and then, if interested, opt to provide their contact information so that they’ll be contacted in the future.  This makes it easy for customers to identify the product they want and then actively seek them out.

On the whole, a strong company website must attract traffic, keep the traffic there with a well-designed site, make it easy for a potential customer to educate themselves on the products available, and then easily provide their contact information so that they can get in touch with the desired company.  In the end, when companies maintain websites that can do all these things, it’s of enormous benefit to both the company and the potential consumer.

Tags: Lead Management