Corporate Websites 101: Building a Corporate Website for the New Internet

When it comes to websites on the internet as we know it today, they have to be more than just static sites. This article discusses the necessity of building a corporate website for the modern internet.

Gone are the days when a corporation could simply put up a website that is a semi-interactive profile page. Now is the new age of the internet, when the online world seems to be as significant as the physical one in creating and holding identity. And in this fully immersive online world that people around the globe are locked onto and interacting with every second of the day, every corporation needs a website that is more than a resume.

Virtual Is as Real as the Physical: Why Building a Corporate Website Is a Necessity

These days, a corporation is more than the big formal name that owns a line of products, smaller companies, or delivers goods to customers worldwide. It’s an entity that is now observable by the many consumers that buy its goods or services and one that people can research online. This immediately reveals that a corporation needs a website that can also be “consumed” by online users. The corporate website, in a way, is now its product and marketing tool, built for fostering better relationships with customers and other businesses. It’s now part of the user experience that consumers have come to expect.

If you ask any marketing project manager about how useful a corporate website is for building trust and identity, they may go as far as to say that it’s a growth hacking tool. An effective corporate website can do so much more than simply provide a banner and a company’s basic description. It’s more than just a database of contact numbers and high-ranking personnel as well.

Corporations working with web designers to build their corporate websites need to do more than just hand them a press release. They need a suitable template, exciting content that prompts visitors to share, streamlined aesthetics (including easy-to-read, compatible fonts and colors), visitor tracking features such as DNS lookups, and even a law-compliant Privacy Policy (you may have noticed websites that cater to the EU have strengthened or adjusted theirs due to a new policy; this is critical to continue operations anywhere).

But why is all this so necessary? Isn’t it merely extra effort when the bare minimum would do?

• Corporations Don’t Get Anywhere Doing the Bare Minimum: The different online platforms that a corporation uses to interact with its consumer base or its fellow businesses lead back to the corporate website. And if the visitors don’t find the website engaging or informative, they won’t come away with a good image of the corporation they’re considering working with.
• Corporations May Also Miss Out on Potential Business Deals and Feedback From Their Customers: A corporate website is a precious opportunity to market the corporation and its image towards other businesses and establishes trust with their consumers. People like to know who they are doing business with, and a corporate site is an excellent medium to help build rapport.
• It’s a Prime Place to Place Relevant Content: Even if a corporation doesn’t plan to gain a lot of monetization on their website through clicks and hits, it’s still a chance to propagate a page with valuable content that will drive people to buy a product service.
• Finally, Corporations Need to Think of Their Websites as a 24-Hour Service Hub for Their Customers and Visitors: Even when office hours are over, people can go straight to a corporate website to have their questions answered, look into what products or services you offer and have their concerns and issues addressed.

Building an Internet Stronghold: Guide to Building Your Corporate Website

There are numerous aspects to building the ideal corporate website for the modern internet user. Stay well ahead of the game by considering the following.

1. Build a Site Map

Having a site map laid out before construction is critical. Just as an architect creates blueprints before a building is constructed, the map acts as a process tree that helps you and your web design team build the different parts of the site. Web devs would be assigned to the coding and back end, while front end development goes to the digital strategy team. Marketing teams handle email, social media, the site’s blog, and more. Let the professionals and experts take their respective divisions.

2. Consider Your Target Audience

Answer the questions: who do you expect to come to your website? Other businesses? Customers? What is the demographic you’re looking at? When planning and building your website, you need to pay attention to who is coming to look at it. Understanding what appeals to your audience’s personas is critical in designing a website that will hold their attention and interest. And the more interested they are in your website, the more they can have a meaningful user experience in it.

3. Create High-Quality Content

The content within the corporate website, in all its areas, must be as high-quality as possible. The marketing and content teams need to ensure that the website has informative and data-driven content. Utilizing a content writing tool will be your best course of action to produce rich content for site visitors. Furthermore, the SEO team needs to provide input on ideal keywords for the content to ensure that it will rank high on the search engines.

High-quality content isn’t just helpful in being informative—search engine algorithms put great weight on informative, relevant, and timely content. It helps the website rank much higher in search results.

4. Choose a Professional Design

A professional design entails good, clean lines and aesthetics, with tasteful use of space, font, and colors. Numerous professional templates are available for web designers to use. It’s simply a matter of selecting a template most suitable for your corporate website and customizing it to fit your business’ tone, theme, and culture.

A professional site isn’t one that you can just “play by ear” when it comes to design, as the quality of the site plays a significant role in the audience’s trust in the company.

5. Place Numerous Methods of Contact

No matter what kind of corporation it is, one of the main reasons customers go to the website is communication. It’s for this reason that your website should have every avenue of contact available to your customers. This calls for a dedicated Contact Us page, including the business address, phone numbers, emails, and more.

If possible, put in a form where customers can send messages directly. Social media icons should be at your header and footers so customers can also visit your official corporate accounts on those platforms.

6. Always Keep the Site Updated

There’s nothing worse than being obsolete in the fast-paced online world. The information and contact details on your website must remain updated. Blog posts, company information, product information, and more must be maintained and updated regularly so the most accurate information reaches your site visitors.

Furthermore, updated websites also rank higher on the search engine algorithms, as it proves that the website is well-maintained and pertinent with the times. One great way to do this is to acknowledge and create content that responds to current events.

Final Words: Building a Corporate Website for the New Internet

When it comes to websites on the internet as we know it today, they have to be more than just static sites. The internet had come a long way since the early days of the dot-com bubble when the bare-bones sites were enough to carry a company through. Now, corporate websites are a swiss-army-knife of utilities—it reaches out to and informs customers, provides valuable updates, opens communication and engagement, and most of all markets the corporation in the best way possible. It creates your corporation’s online identity in an increasingly broadening global online world.

What factors did you take into account when creating your corporate website? What features are most important to your company? Let us know in the comments below.