Your corporate website: from the idea to launch and administration

A modern corporate website is a full-fledged "representative office" of your company on the internet. It solves several tasks at once, from building recognition and improving reputation to informing people and generating sales. 

From this article you will learn:

• How do you properly plan the building of a corporate site?
• What should you pay attention to when briefing the specialists?
• What does a well-considered, properly built corporate site give a business? 
• Which is right for you? A catalogue? A business card site? A portal or something else?

The main requirements for a corporate site

The primary goal of such a site is to attract new customers and partners and to strengthen the company's existing connections. The site has to present the company's advantages logically, clearly and convincingly, and to talk about its services, its achievements and important aspects of its internal life. 

If a company aims to open up a new market niche or a new segment, that has to be reflected in the site's structure and its content — texts, news, service descriptions. For a company entering foreign markets, a multilingual site is a must. 

A site must have several channels of contact with customers:

• a contact form;
• phone numbers (preferably with several operators);
• e-mail (you can give the addresses of the sales department, the managing director, the branches);
• Skype and other messengers;
• pages on social media;
• the locations of the company's offices and representative offices. 

A corporate site can be part of a company's data storage system, of its internal and external communication, and an effective advertising platform. 

The functions of a corporate site

Let us go into more detail about what a corporate site is for. We will talk about each function in turn.

Working on the company's image: building it and strengthening it 

A site's content and its design are powerful means of making a company recognisable, of forming a vivid, positive image of the firm and everyone who represents it, and of maintaining that image. These elements also help build the loyalty of customers and partners. 

Work on the site will help form the image of the company you want and the right associations with the brand. 

Widening the network of customers and partners

For a company to grow it is important not only to attract new customers but to widen the partner network. That matters especially for firms working in the b2b segment. There are two main instruments for that task: 

• sections with information about the company, its news and its services;
• a contacts section with a phone number, e-mail, a contact form and other means of getting in touch.

Informing your potential customers about what the company does 

A corporate site has practically unlimited room for informational content. As a rule it is placed in the blog, articles or news sections. What is more, every internet marketing specialist recommends filling a site with accurate, current and useful information about the company. That lets a potential customer make their choice faster, raises the number of enquiries and at the same time reduces the load on managers created by free consultations. 

Which information about a company can matter to potential customers? 

• A short history of the company, its main achievements and lines of work. 
• Information about the firm's managers and staff (their education, experience, achievements, specialisation).
• Information about the goods and services the firm offers, with services described in as much detail as possible. 
• Offers for partners. For example, information about the affiliate programme, a section for dealers of the products and so on. 
• A blog and articles. 

It is impossible to define a minimum or maximum amount of content needed; it all depends on the field, the region the company works in and dozens of other factors. 

Selling through the site: a basic function

A corporate site is, of course, a platform for sales and advertising too. Besides information about prices, goods and services, it is worth placing information about promotions and discounts there. 

Advertising on your own site costs far less. But only if it has already been promoted with SEO and other instruments. 

Recruiting new staff

A site with good traffic can save you time and money when looking for staff. If you need an office manager, an accountant, a finance director or any other employee, post the vacancy in the news section. Be sure to describe the requirements for the candidate, the terms of work and the duties of the position. 

Types of corporate site and their features

The structure of a corporate site, its design and its functionality can differ depending on the client's needs and the nature of the business. There are several kinds of corporate site. To understand which suits you, let us talk about each category in more detail. 

A business card site (for small businesses and young companies)

This option suits companies that have already studied their target audience and are moving on to launching a site. Business card sites are small. Most of them have fewer than 10 pages. A business card site gives the basic information about a company, its services and its goods. The main ways of contacting the firm are placed there too. 

The advantage of this type of online resource is that it can be scaled: functionality and new sections can be added. 

Visitors who have been to the site before will be able to see how the company developed and grew, which events took place in its internal life and how its approach to work changed. That helps strengthen trust and show clearly that the business is promising and reliable.

A catalogue

A site with a branching structure that solves several tasks at once. A catalogue presents the company, informs people about its work and generates sales. Here you can find complete information about goods and services and how to contact the company's managers, who then close the deal. 

This option suits companies selling complex, expensive goods (exclusive furniture, production equipment) and other products whose price depends on the exchange rate. 

A company information portal

Judging by the name alone, the goal of such sites is not to sell but to present important, useful information. A community of users with shared interests forms around such resources. Examples of such subjects: property, internet marketing, business analytics, health. 

Once the community has formed, the portal's owners can move on to selling. All kinds of complex services can be sold through such portals: medical treatment, business consulting, educational material. 

What does a site's success and effectiveness depend on? 

A site's effectiveness depends on the developer's decisions and on effective analysis. The company's image depends on the site too. What should you take into account and pay attention to if you want the site to be as effective as possible? 

The site's structure 

In the article on where to start building a sitewe described building a structure in detail. Here we will simply remind you briefly. A site has to be built so that a user can quickly find any information about the company, its services and its goods. Make sure visitors find it convenient to buy or to submit a request for services. 

Design

Every site should be distinctive and stand out. That does not mean the design has to shout. We recommend using classic colour schemes and commissioning a logo, which then has to be adapted to every medium — printed materials, outdoor advertising and the website. 

It is important to consider the effect each colour has on a person's mood and behaviour. It is better to entrust the work to a professional designer with a good portfolio and genuine references. 

Functionality and responsiveness

It is important to understand which actions you are leading visitors towards. It might be an online purchase, a call, a request for a call back, a request for a brief and so on. Knowing the set of target actions, you can design and implement the site's functionality. That might be: 

• a contact form;
• adding to favourites;
• comparing products;
• a shopping basket;
• a user account;
• social media buttons and so on. 

And one more mandatory requirement for a modern site: responsiveness. That means the site has to display correctly on the screens of mobile devices. Every menu item, every element of a product card and the order form have to switch easily. 

Fast loading 

Do not make the customer wait. A site should load in less than a second. That is the merciless requirement of the modern user, who often loses concentration if information is not given instantly. 

There are dozens of solutions that speed up loading: compressing photographs, several options for loading video and so on. 

Reliable hosting

It is very important to place the site on reliable hosting. If the information is kept on a server with high throughput, the site will withstand heavy load and even DDoS attacks. 

Our technical specialists will help choose hosting with the specifics of your site in mind. Get in touch with Host4Biz support and get advice before ordering hosting and buying a domain name. With good hosting your site will load fast and run steadily. 

How do you brief a site build and get a good result?

 

Building a site yourself is a separate subject, worth a whole article or even a series. So here we will talk about how to brief a site build and get a good result. 

Let us start with your goals

An obvious thought: to get what you want, you have to know what you want. That holds for sites too. The more clearly you describe your vision, and the more sensible it is, the higher the chance your company will have a good site. Of course you should not do all the analytical work for the developers. But some information does have to be provided. It goes into the brief for building a corporate site — a questionnaire with a more or less standard set of questions about the site and the company's work. Which questions will certainly be in the brief? 

• What are the site's tasks and what is its role in the firm's work? 
• Describe the site's target audience and your company's customers. 
• Which of the visitor's problems do your company's goods or services solve? 
• How, in broad terms, should the site look? Which design work does the company already have (a brand book, a logo)? 
• It is also important to decide which information will be on the site and who will update it and how. 

The company may already have a site that needs updating or improving. In that case be sure to tell the developers:

• Which sections do you want to add, remove or keep? 
• Does the site need a redesign? 
• Which functions need to be added? 
• Which new tasks does the site need to be adapted to?

Look for contractors only when you already know what you want from the site

Once you have settled on the brief, start looking for a contractor. Do not chase the lowest price. Always study a web studio's portfolio. The more works it contains and the more fully each is described, the better. Try to find a studio that has delivered projects like yours. That will be the best decision and a sensible investment. 

Always fill in the brief and approve a written specification. That helps keep track of the work and settle any possible dispute in a civilised way. 

Take the design seriously

Remember that a mock-up is more than a pretty picture. Look carefully through everything the designers produce. Do not rush to answer. Prepare your questions and wishes. Remember that repeated reworking makes everyone a loser in the end. So try to set out all your requests in one round and to be consistent.

Site support

When the site build is on the home straight, it is worth thinking about support. What does that involve? 

• Updating and refreshing the information. 
• Prompt resolution of technical difficulties (more rarely or more often, but everyone has them). 
• Monitoring the technical condition and updating plugins, components and the CMS. 
• Responding to user activity (handling orders, reviews, suggestions). 
• Promoting the site and so on.

Some of these tasks can be delegated to the company that built the site. But it is better to keep an eye on it. For that, make sure you have access to the hosting, to the domain registrar and to the site itself — its admin panel. 

Conclusions

Work on a corporate site can take months. The technical part itself is far from the longest stage. For the result to be a success you have to:

• carry out thorough marketing analysis;
• pay attention to choosing good contractors;
• draw up the brief and the specification properly and in detail;
• choose a good hosting provider for the site (we will help and give your site reliable storage);
• discuss and approve the design;
• settle the questions of supporting and promoting the site.

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