Marketing
February 27, 2024
11 minutes
All Posts
Welcome to our comprehensive guide on engineering a successful marketing website! At Crowdlinker, we're excited to share our deep technical knowledge to help you build a high-performing website that drives growth for your business. In this post, we'll walk you through the essential pre and post-launch steps, providing a valuable guide to developers when engineering a marketing site. Let's dive in!
A website that appears broken or displays incorrectly on certain browsers can negatively impact your brand's credibility and professionalism. Users may perceive such issues as a lack of attention to detail or a sign of outdated technology. By ensuring cross-browser compatibility, you convey a professional image, instilling trust and confidence in your brand.
> Test your website on popular web browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. This ensures consistent functionality and a visually appealing experience for all users, regardless of their browser preference.
Mobile responsiveness is crucial for a marketing website due to the widespread use of mobile devices. With a large portion of internet traffic coming from smartphones and tablets, a mobile-responsive website ensures that visitors have a seamless browsing experience, regardless of the device they use. Failing to optimize for mobile can lead to frustrated users, high bounce rates, and missed business opportunities. By prioritizing mobile responsiveness, you demonstrate a commitment to user satisfaction, improve search engine rankings, and capture the attention of the growing mobile audience.
> Confirm that your website is fully responsive and seamlessly adapts to different mobile devices and tablets.
Reviewing the content of a marketing website prior to launch is of utmost importance for several reasons. First, it ensures that the content is error-free, creating a professional and polished impression on visitors. Second, a thorough review allows for consistency in messaging and tone, aligning with the brand's identity. Additionally, reviewing and formatting essential pages like Home, About, Services, and Contact ensures that they are properly presented, providing a cohesive and informative user experience.
> Prior to launch, meticulously review all website content to ensure it is error-free and resonates with your target audience. Run content by those who have a strong command of the language and people who represent your user personas to ensure it resonates with your target audience.
The design and layout of a website is the first impression visitors have of your brand, and a visually appealing design can captivate their attention and build trust. A well-thought-out layout guides users through the website, ensuring easy navigation and seamless access to key information. A visually cohesive design aligned with your brand identity enhances brand recognition and reinforces your message, leaving a lasting impact on visitors and increasing the likelihood of conversion.
> Verify that your website design aligns with your brand identity and conveys your message effectively. Test the responsiveness of the design across devices to ensure it remains visually stunning. Consistency in fonts, colours, and imagery creates a cohesive brand experience.
You know how frustrating it can be to click through pages on a website, not able to find what you are looking for. An intuitive navigation and clear calls-to-action will guide visitors through your site, ensuring they can easily find the information or products they're seeking. A seamless user experience enhances engagement, reduces bounce rates, and increases the likelihood of conversions. Additionally, a user-friendly website builds trust and credibility, leaving a positive impression on visitors and encouraging them to return, recommend your site to others, and establish a long-term relationship with your brand.
> Craft intuitive navigation that allows visitors to explore your website effortlessly. Clear calls-to-action (CTAs) guide users towards desired actions, whether it's making a purchase, filling out a form, or contacting you. Regularly test links and buttons to guarantee they function as intended, creating a frustration-free experience.
You have spent time and money on your website and now you want to share it with the world. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is crucial because it is one of the key ways to attract your ideal audience. First, it helps improve your website's visibility in search engine results, driving organic traffic and increasing your chances of reaching potential customers. Second, by optimizing your website's content and structure for relevant keywords, you can attract targeted traffic and generate higher-quality leads. Additionally, a well-executed SEO strategy can enhance user experience, improve website usability, and boost your brand's credibility and authority in the online space. Overall, investing in SEO during the launch of your marketing website is essential for long-term success and achieving your business goals.
> Boost your website's visibility in search engines by implementing effective SEO strategies. Optimize meta tags, such as title tags and meta descriptions, for each page. Submit your website's sitemap.xml file to search engines for better crawlability. Implement redirects to maintain search engine rankings when URLs change.
Security is what keeps engineers (and the legal team) awake at night. Security is of utmost importance as it safeguards both your business and your customers. A compromised website can lead to data breaches, compromised user information, and damage to your brand's reputation. By prioritizing security measures, such as regular updates, SSL encryption, and strong access controls, you protect sensitive data, instill trust in your visitors, and ensure a safe browsing experience, fostering long-term relationships with your customers.
> Keep your website secure by staying up to date with plugin, theme, and CMS updates. Regularly apply security patches to protect against vulnerabilities. Implement SSL encryption to ensure secure data transmission and build trust with your visitors.
Analytics and tracking provide valuable insights into user behaviour, website performance, and marketing effectiveness. By implementing tracking codes (such as Google Analytics, Snowplow, Matomo, Adobe Experience Cloud) you can monitor website traffic, understand user demographics, track conversions, and identify areas for improvement. These insights enable data-driven decision-making, optimization of marketing strategies, and continual refinement of your website to maximize its impact and achieve your business goals.
> Install tracking codes, like Google Analytics, to capture the metrics important to your business. Correct implementation ensures accurate data collection. Leverage these insights to make informed decisions, refine marketing strategies, and enhance your website's effectiveness.
Forms play a crucial role in improving a marketing website in several ways. First, they enable direct interaction with visitors, allowing you to capture valuable lead information and build a database of potential customers. Second, forms provide opportunities for visitors to engage with your brand, whether it's through contact forms, subscription forms, or feedback forms, fostering a sense of connection and facilitating further communication. Lastly, well-designed and user-friendly forms enhance the overall user experience by making it easy for visitors to take desired actions, ultimately increasing conversions and driving business growth.
> Thoroughly test all forms on your website, such as contact forms and subscription forms, to ensure they function properly. A seamless form submission process is crucial for user satisfaction and capturing valuable leads.
Provide easy to use tools to your social butterflies. Social media integrations amplify your reach and engagement. By seamlessly integrating social media icons and links, you make it effortless for visitors to connect and follow your brand across multiple platforms. Social sharing functionality allows users to easily share your content, expanding your online visibility and driving organic traffic to your website. These integrations facilitate stronger brand presence, increased audience engagement, and the potential for viral sharing, ultimately contributing to the success of your marketing efforts.
> Seamlessly integrate social media icons and links into your website. Ensure they are correctly placed and functional. Test social sharing functionality to encourage visitors to share your content, increasing your brand's visibility and engagement.
Speed and performance directly impact user experience and business outcomes. A fast-loading website keeps visitors engaged, reduces bounce rates, and increases the likelihood of conversions. Additionally, search engines consider speed as a ranking factor, meaning a slow website may result in lower search engine visibility and reduced organic traffic. Prioritizing speed and performance ensures a positive user experience, higher engagement, improved search rankings, and ultimately, better business results.
> Optimize your website's loading speed by compressing images, minifying code, and enabling caching. Test performance across browsers and devices to ensure a consistently fast experience for all users.
Nobody enjoys watching the spinning wheel of death. A slow-loading site will result in diminished user satisfaction. By regularly monitoring performance, including loading speed and uptime, you can identify and address any issues promptly, ensuring a smooth and enjoyable user experience. Optimizing website performance not only enhances user engagement but also positively impacts search engine rankings, organic traffic, and overall conversion rates, ultimately driving the success of your marketing efforts.
> Regularly monitor your website's performance, including loading speed and uptime, using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and Pingdom. Identify and address any performance issues promptly to maintain a smooth user experience.
Monitoring SEO after launching a marketing website allows you to track your website's performance in search engine rankings, identify opportunities for improvement, and adapt your SEO strategies accordingly. By monitoring SEO metrics such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, and user behaviour, you can make data-driven decisions to optimize your website's visibility, attract more targeted traffic, and ultimately drive business growth.
> Post-launch, maintain a focus on SEO efforts. Ensure your sitemap.xml file is correctly submitted to search engines. Monitor search engine rankings and traffic to identify opportunities for improvement. Regularly update content and optimize keywords to enhance your website's visibility and organic search performance.
When we say you had one job, this is at the top of the list. Sensitive user data must be secured at any cost in order to maintain the trust of your visitors. Cyber threats are constantly evolving, and vulnerabilities can arise even after the initial development and launch phase. By proactively monitoring security, applying patches and updates, and implementing robust security measures, you can safeguard your website from potential breaches, prevent data loss, and uphold the integrity of your brand.
> Stay vigilant with security practices after launch. Keep plugins, themes, and your CMS up to date to prevent security vulnerabilities. Implement SSL encryption to protect sensitive data and reassure your visitors of a secure browsing experience.
Monitoring analytics and tracking after launching a marketing website is vital because it provides valuable insights into user behaviour, website performance, and the effectiveness of marketing strategies. By analyzing metrics such as traffic sources, page views, bounce rates, and conversions, businesses can make data-driven decisions to optimize their website, improve user experience, and drive better results. Regular monitoring enables continuous improvement and helps identify areas of success and areas that require adjustment, ultimately leading to a more successful and impactful online presence.
> Regularly review website analytics and tracking data to ensure the tracking code has been implemented correctly. This can be done through inspecting the source code or using browser extensions and testing the analytics setup by performing various actions on the website and verifying if the data is captured accurately in the analytics platform. You can also compare the analytics data with other reliable sources, such as server logs or third-party tools, to ensure consistency and identify any discrepancies that may require further investigation.
Enabling backups and recovery protocols after launching a website safeguards your valuable data and ensures business continuity. In the event of unforeseen issues like data loss, hacking attempts, or website errors, having backups allows you to restore your website quickly and minimize downtime. It provides peace of mind, protects against potential disasters, and allows you to focus on your marketing efforts without the fear of losing critical information or jeopardizing customer trust.
> Set up automated website backups to ensure data can be restored in case of emergencies. Regularly test the backup and recovery process to ensure its reliability. Proactively safeguarding your website ensures minimal disruption and the ability to recover swiftly.
Collecting user feedback and conducting user testing allows you to gain valuable insights into user preferences, identify usability issues, and discover opportunities for improvement and desired new features. By actively involving users in the process, you can optimize the user experience, increase customer satisfaction, and enhance the overall effectiveness of your website, ultimately driving better results for your business.
> Encourage users to provide feedback on your website's usability and functionality. Actively seek their input to gain valuable insights into their experiences. Conduct regular user testing to identify areas for improvement and enhance the overall user experience.
At Crowdlinker, we are passionate about engineering high-performing marketing websites. By following these pre and post-launch steps, you'll establish a solid foundation for success and set your website on the path to growth. Remember, continuous monitoring, improvement, and adaptation are key to maintaining a successful online presence. Contact us today to discuss how we can help you achieve your website goals and drive meaningful results for your business!
