Choosing your website features
No matter who you choose to help you with your website or if you do it all yourself, websites cost money and time.
My ethos is to ensure your content works hard for your business…and your website is no exception. It is an asset and should be working really hard for you…even doing certain tasks for you.
Let’s take a look at the features you may want to include in your website and, perhaps, you may discover some elements of your business that could be automated – all thanks to these features and the in-built functionality on your website.
What do you want your website to do for your business?
Before I get started, depending on how your website was designed there may some limitations to what you can achieve without extra plug-ins or even further development. However, it’s nice to consider the whole range of opportunities even if it’s additions that you can’t afford or are unable to include right now…but add it to the wish list!
If you are starting a fresh and planning your website, then this is a great list of items that you can consider. Knowing exactly what you want your website to do for you before you start is really helpful for focussing on navigation and user experience too.
So, in a perfect world …
…Which of these would you like your website visitor to be able to do via your website?
Contact me
There are a number of ways that your website can help potential customers and clients to get in touch with you. Firstly, you can ensure your contact information, including phone number, email addresses and physical address (important if you have a shop, office or location you want customers to visit) is place prominently and repeated.
You can also include built in forms – in the footer of your website, the homepage and on a dedicated ‘Contact’ page. Decide which fields you want on the forms and, if you have a choice, which email address the completed forms and their content should be sent to, so that they are not missed and are replied to promptly.
Connect with me
It’s often a case of including and hyperlinking social media icons – but it’s important to note which social media platforms you want to advertise and how much emphasis you want to put on this to encourage your website visitor to find you on social media.
If this is an important role of your website, you can also consider embedding a social media feed in to your website. This means your latest posts will appear in a grid or list on your website – perhaps on your home page, in your footer or another relevant location. Make sure you decide where.
Embedding a social media feed is not simple and will involve getting special code from your account on the platform itself to ‘make the link’ between your website and social media feed, so be aware of this.
Also, if you are a bit sporadic with posting on social media, consider how this may look on your website if the last post is quite a while ago.
Book appointments
If you want your clients or customers to be able to book appointments with you, there are a number of choices. You can look at having something built bespoke for your website. You can directly embed some form of calendar in a page. Or, you can direct your website user to an external site which provides booking functionality – such as Calendly. I use this as I only want basic appointment booking features, i.e. Book a discovery call. However, if you want to be able to book paid appointments for different lengths of times and different types of services, for example, if you are a beautician or therapist, then you may want to research a wide of options that will not only let you do this, but offers a good user experience for your customers.
Sign up to my mailing list
A website should be a good starting point of a funnel for encouraging people to sign up to your mailing list. It is common to use a third party platform to send emails, such as Mailchimp or HubSpot, so do consider how to link this to your website, to ensure no sign ups are missed.
You will also want to consider the placement of the mailing list sign up invitation – perhaps in your footer, on your home page or as a separate pop up. Remember some people automatically block pop ups. Whatever you choose, ensure you are GDPR compliant.
Furthermore, you will also want to consider if you are going to offer a ‘lead magnet’, such as a discount code or a download as a gift to your subscribers.
Book courses or event tickets
As with booking appointments, you will want to consider if booking and purchasing ‘tickets’ is something you want your website visitors to do without leaving your website – i.e. they stay within your domain to make their purchase, or whether you are happy to embed or include a link to a third party provider. If you are going with the latter option, you can explore providers, such as EventBrite and Ticket Tailor, but you may also be able to do a cost effective option using available ‘e-commerce’ functionality already built in to your website.
There’s lots to explore, so consider how often you will want your clients and customers to do this and any fees attached with the different options available.
Collect important information
When booking appointments or offering some form of personalised service, you may need to capture important information about your website visitor, without having to make direct contact. This can be associated with booking an appointment (for example a health survey before a beauty appointment or more information about certain needs before a Power Hour).
There are different types of forms and ways to capture and, importantly, store information. Do be aware of any privacy and security measures if you are collecting personal data and storing it.
Buy stuff
If you are a product-based business, then you will definitely want people to be able to buy directly from your website.
Any e-commerce feature are worth exploring thoroughly when designing a website to ensure buying is simple and not ‘clunky’. You want to ensure that payment is secure and that also you receive orders in a timely manner so that you can fulfil and post them to your customers – if they are not digital products.
You’ll also want to consider other automated tasks that your website can provide – like stock counts, out of stock notifications, confirmation emails, sending follow up emails and encouraging item reviews, for example.
Get a discount
This may be one of the more simple features but it’s one of those that’s really annoying if you don’t have it and need to add it later. Check what options you have for offering discounts, particularly the ease with which you can offer different types of discounts and discount codes and how easy this is for you to implement.
This is very important if part of your content strategy is offering sales and promotions.
Order samples
I’ve included this as different to actually buying, as sometimes you need elements of a ‘transaction’ or ecommerce feature but without money being exchanged. Many DIY websites and ecommerce platforms are set up to sell…not give items away for free! However, if you sell materials, carpets, artificial lawns, etc. etc., allowing your customers to order free samples online, may be important to you.
Access exclusive or member only content
Do you want to have a members only section? Consider what you need to protect and keep exclusive and also how you are going to make access simple to those who need it…but secure from those who don’t.
You may need a dedicated membership site – like my Content Club – or you may just want to have a password protected section of your website.
Make recommendations
There are lots of different businesses where it is useful for you if your website makes recommendations to your website user. These can be extremely sophisticated where recommendations are based on your customers online activity or simply making recommendations for similar blog posts or products on the current page they are browsing, as assigned by you via a category or tag.
Having a ‘recommendation’ section can encourage website visitors to stay on your site for longer and also explore areas or items they may not have seen before or come across organically, so it is a great feature for SEO and customer service.
Read and comment on blogs
This is probably more of a given for nearly any website nowadays, but if you are having a bespoke website built, do talk your developer or designer about blog functionality. Even a blog isn’t something you plan to start straight away. Do you want people to be able to comment on your blogs and also share to their social media, for example. It may be as simple as an ‘on’ or ‘off’ choice to have these features, but it’s worth considering.
Complete online courses
Finally, online course are a big area for growth – particularly for service-based businesses wanting to offer ‘one-to-many’ workshops and trainings, at your clients’ own convenience. As with many website features, you have the choice of using a third party platform, which you ‘send people to’, such as Thinkific or Teachable. Or, you can look in to investing in course functionality which is embedded and sits more naturally within your own website, for example MemberPress.
Consider again access and payment options for your courses too.
Features, features and more website features….
I know that’s quite a list…and yet, there’s probably some I’ve forgotten! Feel free to tell me if there is something else you would like your website to do for your business and we can explore the options together. Get in touch to learn more about my website content writing services.
For more information about planning your website and considering its structure, take a read of this excellent guest post from Ready Steady Website’s Jude Wharton too: