By Willy Gissen
If you last updated your website a few years ago, you should reevaluate your company needs because business sites have been evolving as rapidly as other technological and social media platforms.
Websites represent the public face your company presents to the world, and an outdated site structure conveys a stale and static image.
The following five items should be used for every website.
Responsive Design
The spread of smartphone technology requires one of the most fundamental changes in website structure: The use of responsive design.
More than 50 percent of searches now occur on a mobile device, and responsive design automatically adapts to the screen size of your visitor.
WordPress offers a number of inexpensive templates with responsive design built into the coding, and this feature proves invaluable for a company to adapt to the visitor’s device in a seamless manner.
As iPhone changes the screen sizes, or tablets wax and wane in popularity, your website will still be rendered in a readable and user-friendly manner.
Moreover, Google is beginning to credit mobile-friendly sites with improved search engine rankings, especially for mobile searches.
A site coded with responsive design will give you an enduring edge over the competition.
Website Media Room
A media room on a website’s top navigation bar provides a one-stop resource for journalists interested in learning more about your organization.
It contains landing pages for various publicity categories such as news releases, news coverage, bylined articles, radio interviews, YouTube videos, executive bios, images, and newsletters.
As you create publicity, you will organically grow your media room as an enduring repository.
Media rooms also improve a website’s search engine ranking because they make the site more dynamic.
Each time you add a new page to your website, Google notices and adjusts your website ranking accordingly.
An Internal Corporate Blog
Blogs hosted on your company’s website (http://www.yoursite.com/blog) represent one of the most powerful ways to improve your search engine ranking.
In addition to creating a dynamic website, they provide an entirely independent way for visitors to access your site.
The best blogging software for your website can be found at WordPress.org (not WordPress.com, an external blogging site).
Due to its popularity, a whole slew of developers have created “plug-ins” to increase its blogging functionality.
These plug-ins can enable pull quotes, improve SEO, protect against spam, and link to related posts, to name a few.
Social Follow and Sharing Buttons
Social follow and sharing buttons provide an excellent way for visitors to share your postings with others.
They also represent a powerful way to promote your company when you include counters to show how many friends or followers you have amassed.
A company with hundreds of Facebook likes and thousands of Twitter followers should share that information in a prominent place such as the website’s home page.
Other innovations such as sliding share bar—moving on the left or right margin as you scroll down the page—demonstrate your online sophistication and can help your content go viral.
Just one caveat: You should focus on a few social media platforms instead of spreading yourself thin.
Consider contributing to at least two of the big three (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) on a regular basis, then add something unique, such as Tumblr, Pinterest, or Google+, depending on your individual preference.
Slideshow
An interesting slideshow, usually at the top of your home page, increases average time spent on your site and can add a little pizazz to your presentation.
Make sure you leave plenty of time for the visitor to read your captions, and if you can create a story line about your company, all the better.
Vendors such as jQuery provide sophisticated slideshow options and can help with the technological aspects of the show.
And do not feel required to limit the length of your slideshow as visitors can watch as long as they want.
As long as you are providing unique content, your slideshow could cycle through as many as 10 or 15 images.
Website Development
Your website tells your visitors a lot about your company and yourself.
It represents an essential investment in your company’s growth and should be revamped on a regular basis.
Using the elements listed above will ensure your next site provides a competent and professional image.