In the interconnected digital landscape, your website serves as a global window into your business. Potential clients, partners, and even competitors are constantly peering in. That means your website often serves as a crucial first introduction to new audiences — and, as we all know, you never get a second chance to make a first impression.
It’s essential, then, for your online presence to exude confidence and innovation. It needs to properly reflect your brand’s leadership and place in the industry.
Marketers in the B2B sector understand this especially well. Users make snap judgments about your company based on their initial interaction with your website. You either nail it here or face an uphill battle to convince people that you’re better than your digital footprint.
So, what are they looking for?
An effective website needs more than bells and whistles. While it’s easy to focus on adding elements that deliver some subjective “wow” factor — like elaborate animations — they can distract from the less exciting, but infinitely more impactful, work of understanding your users and their journey on the site.
Doing so requires data-driven decisions, informed by what your users tell you and what you know about their online behavior. For more insights on effective user research, look no further than our blog on overhauling your underperforming lead generation website.
This kind of user-centric approach is non-negotiable if you aim to lead the industry.
Still, looks matter online. The better your website looks, the higher users perceive its quality and intuitiveness. This is an established phenomenon known as the Aesthetic-Usability Effect.
It means that users are more likely to overlook small frustrations and leave with a positive impression of your site when they’re immediately impressed by its aesthetics. In other words, a modern, brand-centric design can significantly boost user engagement and customer satisfaction.
That principle only goes so far, though. If you build a stunning design at the expense of intuitive navigation and functionality, your users’ goodwill won’t last. They’ll eventually notice that your site is missing information that they’re looking for, or won’t be able to ignore a growing pile of functional frustrations. At that point, your beautiful UI won’t stop them from leaving.
That also means you should ensure your site is streamlined enough to load and run efficiently. Even a beautifully designed page will only frustrate users if it’s slow to load and chugs along on their device.
Talking about devices, responsive design isn’t just a trend; it’s a necessity. Users expect smooth navigation and quick access to information, regardless of whether they’re using a desktop, tablet, or smartphone.
Before you start any work on your website, you need to understand exactly what you want to get out of it.
To set yourself up for success, be sure to stay away from goals that are too vague or cannot easily be measured — and make sure you have the right benchmarks to compare your new results to your old statistics.
In the early stages of your web project, Major Tom employs what we call a Blue-Sky Thinking Explore Phase.
During this phase, you leave all options on the table. Disregard your budget and identify real quality-of-life changes that can improve and transform users’ experience on your site. Even if some of these overhauls aren’t viable right away, they can act as valuable goals and signposts for the ongoing optimization of your site.
For now, you need to turn that blue-sky brainstorming into practical goals. Now is when you start to realistically consider the project’s limitations, like your target launch date and available budget. Based on these factors, document and prioritize a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for launch.
That doesn’t mean you should abandon the rest of those blue-sky ideas. Other improvements can be made post-launch, when you’ll benefit from being able to measure what’s actually working (or not working) on the live site.
This is important, because effective websites aren’t launched and left alone. Ongoing maintenance and optimization protect your investment in the site, helping it evolve and improve — while showing users that you’re constantly striving to improve their overall experience.
Just look at Major Tom’s work with the Layfield Group.
One of the most forward-thinking businesses in their industry, Layfield started out with a new website, overhauling their information architecture to improve navigation for users across a massive customer base and multiple lines of business.
But they didn’t rest on their laurels after launch. Recognizing that the site is one of their best sales assets (and helps them stand out from competitors), Layfield is investing in its success. They’re focused on improving users’ experience through Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), working to maintain their website’s leading position with continued innovation.
Because they’d generated blue-sky ideas about what the site could offer users, and how it could stand out from the rest of the industry, Layfield was able to hit the ground running after launch — and continue to pursue the best experience for their users.
Setting measurable goals will help you tell if the new version of your website is doing a better job than the old one. But how do you determine the right goals for your project?
Measurable goals should include specific statements based on numerical data, which will quickly let you know if you have reached your target. Maybe that’s increasing form submissions, or getting more views for specific, business-critical pages.
Whatever you focus on, your goals should also be realistic enough to achieve within a set amount of time, based on where you are right now. If your timeline for hitting a target gets too fuzzy, it will be difficult to evaluate when something needs to change.
While the specific needs of a top-performing website vary from industry to industry, certain types of strategic goals help drive leadership in nearly any field. An industry-agnostic perspective can even help you discover unique insights and advantages that you won’t find if you only look at direct competitors.
Building an in-depth understanding of what these goals look like for your business plays a crucial role in helping your website achieve peak performance — and building a clear path to stand out from your competitors.
Some of the most important goals to consider to help secure your business's position as an industry leader include:
Just as important, you need to set these goals early and stick to them if you want to see results. If you’re working with an agency partner, bring them to the table early on so they can build deeper insights into your business and help you pick the right goals for your site.
For that reason, Major Tom approaches our web development process as an extension of each client’s team.
We get involved early to fully understand our client's business goals, customer needs, and the technical feasibility of implementing different digital solutions. By starting at the ground level, we can anticipate future challenges and trends, building strategies that are not reactive but proactive — and setting the stage for future-proof solutions.
Knowing what your competitors are doing is an important step in keeping up with your industry. If they tend to incorporate modern trends before your business does, they’ll help you understand where your site needs to grow. But those insights also offer a distinct advantage when it comes to staying ahead of the pack.
For example, if dated websites are the standard in your industry, that shouldn’t be an excuse to stay stagnant. Think of it as an opportunity: if you’re the first to roll out a new, user-friendly site, you’ll immediately jump to the forefront of your peers and claim invaluable digital equity for your brand.
By consistently being among the first businesses in your industry to incorporate relevant trends, you should also see more concrete gains. Your optimized website will likely capture a larger percentage of the market as your competitors lag behind, leading to even greater ROI on your web projects.
Your potential customers need to find your website before they can make a purchase or otherwise engage with it.
When it comes to organic user searches, that puts you at the mercy of algorithms that Google and other search engines use to order results — algorithms that are constantly changing.
This means that staying on top of the latest SEO guidelines requires constant attention. Just as importantly, because these algorithms are always (to some extent) opaque, you need to consider user behavior as well as shifting SEO guidelines in order for your site to continue to rank. For example, if you write a page that’s stuffed with keywords but offers no useful information, users will leave as quickly as they arrive and your search placement will suffer.
Balancing these factors and adjusting your content accordingly will help get your website in front of your customers, but also encourage them to interact with it.
And remain, the same goes for any older or legacy content on your website. Adjusting keywords and other details of existing content can refresh Google's confidence that it meets current quality content standards, increasing the odds that it’s served to your target audience.
Is a new website currently out of scope and out of your budget? Or perhaps you’ve recently launched a new site and are starting to notice diminishing returns? You don’t need to start from scratch to improve your brand’s presence online.
Consistently updating and optimizing your website has the potential to significantly increase your sales and profits. It tells your target audience that your business is probably aware of and ready to use cutting-edge concepts within your industry. It builds trust that your site is up-to-date and secure, and it shows that you’re paying attention to what’s going on in your field.
Updating your website regularly can also lead to better search engine rankings, user engagement, overall website performance, and other key benefits that are more likely to draw potential customers to your content.
“A website is never finished.” That’s a mantra that every industry leader should live by.
Ongoing optimization will keep your website from stagnating, and ensure it evolves alongside your company, audience, and industry trends. When a full website relaunch is such a big investment, ongoing optimization is much more cost-effective. It ensures your (new) website will run like a well-oiled machine for years to come.
If you’ve properly vetted the proposals from prospective web agencies, you may already have a plan in place to optimize and maintain your site after launch.
Design your website to grow with your business.
A scalable and flexible architecture allows for seamless integration of new features and technologies. You can’t predict what new solutions will be available five years down the road, but you can make it easier for your site to adopt the latest and greatest.
Tell your web agency where you want to be over the next few years, including possible functionality that you want to include down the line. This is where the ideas and planning from that Blue-Sky Explore Phase come in handy.
If you know your future goals from the beginning of a project, you can choose the right tech stack early on — not just for launch, but also for long-term additions and growth. You don’t want to build a platform that can run your Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and then have to tear it down in a few short years because it won’t scale with your new ideas.
In other words, sketch out an ambitious plan, then scale back to what you can achieve with your MVP for launch. Once your site is live, you can bring back some of those bigger goals and see if there’s a place for them in the long-term roadmap for your site.
The right tech stack should make it easier for you to bring those ideas to life later, even if they’re not in the picture right now.
Don’t build a short-sighted website that will last you three years. Think long-term and build one that — if you update and optimize it frequently — will do its job for 10.
Regularly track your website’s performance metrics to identify areas for improvement. Faster load times, compliance with accessibility standards, and enhanced security are just a few aspects to keep an eye on.
This way, you’ll notice any problems (or dips in performance) sooner — and can address them before they turn into bigger issues.
A clean backend is essential for painless website management. Using an intuitive content management system (CMS) and well-organized codebases make updates and maintenance less daunting.
With a well-configured backend, your site will be easier for your team to work with after launch. They can be more free and creative with new additions and content, knowing that their work won’t jeopardize the site’s consistency or compromise its user experience.
This is one of Major Tom’s strengths. We’ll help ensure that ongoing updates and optimizations are easy to implement and unlikely to cause other problems.
The easier it is to maintain your site, the easier it will be for your team to commit to keeping it up-to-date.
Incorporate robust KPI tracking and data analysis tools to make informed, data-driven decisions. This information is your guiding light when deciding what needs to change or evolve. Without it, you’ll just be making your best guess.
Pay specific attention to changes in user behavior, conversion rates, and other key metrics to guide your optimization efforts. A/B testing is another effective way to gather data and ensure top performance.
To be recognized as an industry leader, your website needs more than just a one-time overhaul. Continuous work and ongoing improvements are essential.
The good news? Major Tom is here to help. With extensive experience in crafting industry-leading web presences, we specialize in both new builds and ongoing optimization.
Ready to elevate your website to industry-leader status? Let’s connect and start this journey together. Reach out to Major Tom today, and let’s make your web presence as outstanding as the work you do.