13 Vital Website Components to Implement Right Now

Websites are the first impression of any brand or business. The way people search for and find a company to work with has changed dramatically. 

A company’s website now does everything.

That website now must be a recruiting tool for prospective employees, a sales hub, a place to educate site visitors about your company, provide ways to contact you, and so many more things. Your site must also be visually appealing and high functioning. To be able to do these things, there are specific parts of your website that must operate at the highest level possible. 

Let’s look at the 13 parts of a website you need to implement right now. When these parts of your website work well, you can expect a positive impact on your bottom line.

1. Seamless Navigation
2. Clear Brand Messaging
3. Strong Calls-To-Action
4. SEO: Keywords, Header Tags, Meta Descriptions & More
5. CRM
6. Product And Service Pages
7. Live Chat
8. Contact Information
9. Positive Press, Awards & Social Proof
10. Valuable Content With Social Media Sharing Buttons
11. Accessibility Features
12. Security Features
13. Analytics Tools And Conversion Tracking

1. Seamless Navigation

Make sure your site is as easy as possible to navigate and make sure information is located in a place that makes sense. No one should have to search for how to contact you, for example. 

A usable navigation is easily one of the most important parts of a website. 

Even if you think you have laid your site out perfectly, always include a site map. Also, make sure your site is mobile friendly. More than 50% of searches occur on mobile. 

2. Clear Brand Messaging

While your site is essential in helping generate sales, it also serves as a messenger for your brand. 

Anyone wanting to work or business with you should know what kind of company you are. Your website can tell that story for you. You should dedicate a portion of your site to discussing how your company was created, what its culture & values are, and showcase as many members of your team as possible. Offering this information to anyone who visits your site shows that your business is open and transparent. 

People trust brands that offer transparency. 

3. Strong Calls-To-Action

There is always a reason for bringing people to your site. You may want them to read your blog, sign up for your emails, make a purchase, etc. What are you doing to drive them to take this action? 

Your site will need a strong call to action. 

Most websites use a call to action button with words like “buy now” or “sign up today” to entice actions from visitors. While this can work, you may need to offer incentives or bonuses to get the action you want. Consider an initial discount or some other type of reward to thank people for responding to your call to action.

4. SEO: Keywords, Header Tags, Meta Descriptions & More

While many people will find your site through a Google search or link from your social media, you don’t want to limit your traffic to just those sources. You want to optimize your website for SEO and open yourself up to many other sources of traffic. 

The term “optimize your website” can confuse or intimidate some people. When you optimize your website, this is what you are doing.

• Making sure that you have used keywords in your content that will boost your Google ranking. Conduct keyword research to make sure you are using the best ones for your industry.
• All your content has the proper headers and subheaders to help the search crawlers.
• Check your URL slugs, meta tags, meta descriptions, and image alt text. 
• Create and develop quality backlinks for your site.
• Make sure your site is ready for off-site SEO, which is traffic generated by social media, influencer marketing, or guest bloggers.
• Check your page load speed and make adjustments as needed. This could mean switching CDNs or omitting ads from your site.

All of these steps will help you improve your traffic and your Google rankings. 

5. Integrate Your CRM

This is one of the most important things you can do for your business. 

Your CRM is a powerful tool when you supply it with data. It can help you with everything from marketing automation to creating customer personas. 

It can also utilize any information gleaned from your chatbots. But it can’t do those things unless it is integrated into your website. 

6. Products And Service Pages

Make sure you utilize product descriptions so customers can see why your products are the best and see the value of what you sell. 

Service pages are equally as important. 

A potential customer should see exactly what services your company offers. Your service pages should also indicate what sets you apart from your competition. 

For example, if you offer carpet cleaning services, your service pages should describe what you do as well as why you have an edge over your competitors. It could be anything from non-toxic chemicals to the ability to quick dry the carpet. Make sure you list all of these benefits on your service pages.

7. Live Chat

Live chat is one of the most crucial parts of a website you need to install if you want to connect with your digital audience.

If you want customers to be able to find answers to their questions and inquire about your services, then installing a live chat is a great solution. A live chat will allow prospects to simply chat with one of your team members quickly and efficiently, instead of submitting a form and waiting for your response via email or phone call. 

8. Contact Information

If people are on your site, you want to make everything as easy as possible for them. You do not want to make it difficult for people to contact your company or your customer service department. 

Put this information in a prominent place so it is quickly found. 

If you make it hard for the public to contact you, this can send the wrong message to your customers. It could appear you have something to hide and it can make you seem less than trustworthy.

Having you contact information is one of the most important parts of a website that you can have.

9. Positive Press, Awards & Social Proof

To earn a customer’s business, you want them to trust you. You also want to show them why you are the best person for them to work with or purchase from. To do that, showcase what you have accomplished on your website. The types of things you will want to show off for your website visitors are:

• Positive press articles
• Awards you have won in your field
• Customer testimonials
• Applicable certifications and accreditations

Don’t be afraid to say how many years you’ve been in business either. Showcasing your longevity can give a future customer a reason to trust you.

10. Valuable Content With Social Media Share Buttons

Your content needs to offer value to your customer and also be share-worthy. To offer value, you have to deliver your customers the things they want to see, hear, or read about.

Examples of content that has value for customers would be:

• Thought leadership articles on trends, FAQs, and tips within your industry
• Videos of product demonstrations 
• Pictures of your employees giving back to the community
• Using social media to cross-promote and send traffic to your website and your social channels.

Providing content like this will incentivize your visitors to stay longer while they are on your site and return more often. 

When loading this content to your site, don’t forget to integrate sharing capabilities. 

This makes your content easy to share. If your company wrote a compelling thought piece on digital marketing strategies, you want social sharing buttons available. A reader could share your content to Twitter, LinkedIn, or many of the other networks. 

These share buttons are one more way to drive traffic, as well as potential leads and business, to your site. 

11. Accessibility Features

People with a wide variety of disabilities will visit your site. Once they are there, can they use your site and interact with your content? If not, make the needed changes so that your site is welcoming to everyone. That can easily be done by adding a few accessibility features. 

You will want to make sure that people who visit your site can:

• Read the text clearly and that the font and colors don’t make it more difficult to see.
• Any videos on your site should also come with closed captioning.
• Install any widgets that will help people navigate your site who may have difficulty using a mouse.
• Some people use voice control to help them search and navigate. Ensure your site is responsive to voice technologies.

Many individuals with disabilities have some form of adaptive technology to help them navigate the web. But for those who don’t, your accommodations allow them to be a part of your site and community. 

12. Security Features

Privacy and security on the internet are important to consumers. 

No one wants their data or credit card information at risk. And sadly, there are many individuals who are always looking for vulnerable websites to see what data they can steal. There is a considerable underground market for stolen data and credit card numbers. To ensure safety of your customers, security features will be implemented into your site design. 

One way to make customers feel secure when interacting with your site is install an SSL certificate on your site. This feature offers a sense of security to your users and will make them feel safer providing you with their information. 

13. Analytics Tools And Conversion Tracking

Once you have put all the time and effort into your site, you want to make sure you are getting the results you need. Countless analytics tools can help you see where your traffic is coming from. 

Google has an entire platform dedicated to analytics. 

These types of tools are useful because it lets you see what works and what doesn’t. This way you can see what outreach you should invest more in and what you can reduce. If social media is your biggest driver, use these stats as a reason to invest more in those channels.

Another great data point to track is website conversions. 

What this essentially means is you want to determine the percentage of people who came to your website and performed the action that you wanted them to. For example, if you have an online store and 100,000 people visited your site over the course of one month but only 2000 made a purchase you would have a conversion rate of 2%. 

The conversion rate of your website is a great way to determine the health of your site. 

If your rate is low, that means something isn’t working well. You’ll need to figure out what part of your site is keeping people from not taking the action. If you want more people to sign up for your newsletter is the subscribe button easy to find? If you aren’t generating a lot of sales is it because your interface makes it hard to shop? 

Studying this number gives you a place to start with those conversations.

Final Thoughts

All parts of a website are important. 

However, some parts serve an outsized function in the success of the site. If you focus on the 13 parts of a website to implement right now, you will see an improvement to your website traffic, conversion and overall sales.