Corporate website development: What to expect and notice.

In connection with the total departure of consumers to the Internet, the presence of their own representative office on the network has become a mandatory item on the “must-have” list for business representatives. 

A corporate website is, in fact, the official representation of a company on the Internet.

The corporate website is the leading platform where the company publishes information about its activities, offers, terms of cooperation, and also through which it accepts online applications, receives feedback, and collects data about its target audience.

The corporate site’s structure is built to solve both of these tasks efficiently. Therefore, a website for a brand should always be individual and determined to form the terms of reference for development. However, each site has a list of required pages. This is a prerequisite for optimizing the site for promotion in search engines, and the predictability of the structure helps users navigate the menu and search for the information they need.

The corporate website development’s primary purpose is to create an image and brand as the most prominent key depends on the first impression. The first is formed based on corporate identity, the notion of employees, product quality, and public relations. The second helps create clear associations and positive emotions with the promoted products, outperform competitors, and achieve global (well, or regional) recognition. A website to raise awareness should be characterized by: corporate style, broadcasting the image and goals of the company, expertise.

The corporate site should contain sections:

– About the company;

– Description of offers for clients and partners;

– Terms of cooperation;

– Payment methods;

– Contact Information. 

The product catalog does not hinder trading companies; the sphere of b2c-services – a list of employees with the consolidation of competencies; Sphere b2b — cases, duration of contracts, list of representative offices. In addition, it is desirable to provide the possibility of interactive feedback on the website for a company. This can be a chat on the site or a link that opens a chat with company representatives in one popular instant messengers.

Design is fundamental to an organization’s brand, as are functionality and navigation. It should stand out among your participants. An unworthy or ineffective website makes the company look bad. Websites must be exciting and attractive to customers to capture visitors’ attention, inspire trust, and convert them into customers.

Pros of custom design

A well-thought-out corporate website design will help present your advantages to customers, demonstrate solidity and enhance your image. 

The custom design for a company website is not something you should save on. The site should be representative and thoughtful. In order to make yourself known, it is worth considering not only modern design trends. It is important to take into account the psychological characteristics of a person.

A corporate website should have a stylish, memorable design that matches both the company’s activities and its target audience. Corporate website design plays an important role. It can both attract a potential client, motivate him to act, and push him away, creating the wrong impression

As a rule, corporate websites are designed in the corporate style of the company. However, if it is not there, design development should be based on website design trends, emphasize the company’s merits, and evoke the right associations about the company from the target audience. It is important to choose the right colors and take into account their combination. If this causes difficulties for you or you are just thinking about the design of the future site, we recommend contacting 1MDE to get professional advice and see how easily your idea comes to life.

A corporate website should be professional, clean, simple, and consistent with the image and brand of the organization. For example, a construction company is unlikely to use bright colors or overly frilly fonts. The color palette and use of fonts will be consistent with the company and its purpose. This is an opportunity to include your brand image.

Web design should also be responsive and optimized for mobile viewing. These days, many people tend to use mobile devices. All websites should be user-friendly for people to browse, no matter what device they use.

Good design that visitors love is vital to how people perceive a business online. The design includes layout, colors, fonts, images, overall theme, logos, and use of white space. And this should apply to the industry. The site should work without problems with all advertising materials both online and offline. This helps create a single brand across all media channels that are instantly recognizable.

Let’s take a look at a few examples of corporate websites design:

• The Apple website is a great example of a simple and elegant corporate website that maintains an elegant look and feel. It draws you in, so you keep reading. When you visit the site, you see the latest iPhone. It instantly draws you in to learn more about the product.
  

• The Blab Studio website is excellent; an advertising, branding, and communications agency website that visually allows visitors to interact with its innovative approach. It’s interactive, simple, and lets you scroll and tap to find out more. Ultimately, all clicks on this website result in the provision of your contact details for further information.
  

• Prada’s website is incredibly simple, featuring the latest collection featuring celebrities wearing Prada. It portrays the understated glamor of Prada. You can scroll the page from left to right, up and down to find out more about fashion collections and locations.
  

Can we integrate CRM?

CRM-system is an assistant to any company, regardless of its size, availability of a website and the number of customers. Both the grocery store and the federal company will find in it the tools to grow and improve work efficiency. 

It is a mistake to believe that only online stores and large enterprises need CRM. Automation is essential for any business. This improves work efficiency, promotes sales growth and company development. But in fact, there are few organizations that have implemented a CRM system and use its full potential. What is the reason?

It’s simple: people know too little about CRM systems. In this regard, they are divided into three groups: 

• They don’t even know what CRM (customer relationship management) is. 
• They have heard that it is very expensive, and they think that the investment will not pay off. 
• They say “I don’t need it” without even realizing the possible benefits.

Let’s take a closer look at what CRM for business can do:

• Collects and processes leads;
• Increases sales volume;
• Segmentation and analytics of the client portrait;
• Workflow automation;
• Saves the history of completed transactions;
• Fixes incoming calls from customers and controlling the sales funnel;
• Work standardization.

You can connect the CRM service to the site manually using the built-in tools of the product, or using third-party applications or programmers.

But since we’re talking about corporate websites, the most suitable kind of CRM integration is through API.

CRM integration to your website via API allows you to implement non-trivial tasks and set up sending any data from the site, including hidden ones.

For example, using the API, you can configure the distribution of customer requests by CRM groups based on the contact data format, as well as transfer values ​​from UTM tags. This allows you to fully control the sales funnel, as well as launch end-to-end analytics and analyze traffic sources.

The disadvantages of this method are the complexity and high cost of implementation. To integrate the site with the CRM system, it is necessary to attract a team of qualified specialists. In addition, for the stable operation of this method, the installation of the site on a hosting that supports PHP processing is required.

Implementation via API – assumes configuration flexibility and allows you to implement a task of any complexity. To implement complex or non-trivial integrations, for example, connecting an online store or corporate website to CRM, it is recommended to immediately contact specialists, which you can always do at the 1MDE website. 

Website optimization for your company.

Comprehensive services for the creation and promotion of the site imply the mandatory development of a marketing strategy, which will be a guide in the further development of the resource. It is she who determines the target audience and its content.

Getting a corporate website into search engine rankings depends on how well you optimize the content. This is just as important as website design. If your website is invisible, there is no point in having a website. 

All content and images must match the keywords, metadata, and tags relevant to your site. Every page needs a core message, and the content should reflect that and use relevant keywords.

One of the mandatory components of search engine optimization is the technical optimization of the site. To achieve the best performance in the search results, the site must meet the technical requirements of search engines as much as possible.

All technical optimization items can be grouped into the following groups: 

• Website loading speed; 
• Correct display of layout elements; 
• Correct page layout with metadata, headings, microformats, and other elements; 
• Optimal site structure and internal linking for better indexing by search engines and ease of navigation for users; 
• No duplicate pages and pages with server response code 3xx, 4xx, 5xx; 
• Maximum site security for users and their data.

For users to learn about your site and go to it, you need to invest in SEO promotion in search engines, contextual advertising, and social media marketing. Without investments, you can wait years for a corporate site to pay off, so you will not be able to attract customers to the site without promotion and advertising.

What do we do to make your website secure?

Assuming that your site is of no value to cybercriminals, you are grossly underestimating your invisible enemy. Most hacks are not just data theft or site template breakage but an attempt to use the site to spread spam or create temporary storage of illegal files on it. Other equally common cases of abuse of hacked sites are sites for a botnet or hidden cryptocurrency mining. And don’t forget online ransomware.

This is a small but essential list of specific actions that everyone should take with their web resource if the company’s reputation, the security of web resources, and customer data are not empty words for you. 

There are several basic ways to secure a website:

• Protect against DDoS attacks; 
• Connect an SSL certificate; 
• Use reliable hosting; 
• Use secure plugins/libraries/frameworks/CMS (from now on referred to as “third-party modules”);
• Apply existing techniques to protect against SQL injection and XSS attacks; 
• Ensure website registration and monitoring of security events; 
• Make regular backups of the site and all important data; 
• Use strong and complex passwords, as well as protection against password brute force; 
• If you have an administrative panel that manages the site’s content, you must change the standard login address and provide access control.

Each recommendation deserves its consideration, but even with such a brief review, one thing remains clear – the approach to ensuring security must be comprehensive and systematic, and it does not tolerate a condescending attitude. You need to carefully approach access control, keep existing third-party modules up to date, filter inputs, and much more to keep your website secured.

A corporate website can no longer simply radiate the same content or design as a corporate brochure. It should be unique and reflect the brand message. It should contain concise, dynamically creative yet powerful content and compelling calls to action for lead generation. This is a chance to breathe life into your brand.

Corporate websites are an opportunity for organizations to stand out from the crowd. A good website brings new potential customers to your business. Choosing the right website reassures visitors and gives them the confidence to buy your products and services.

A corporate website that includes all these elements will make a positive and lasting impression. And express your brand in new ways. 

If you plan to build a solid and successful company, you cannot do without a corporate website. 

With the help of this tool, a recognizable brand is created, partners are attracted, and customers’ trust is won. However, it is worth remembering that the creation of such a crucial and voluminous project requires the work of highly qualified specialists.

Don’t waste your time on amateurs – entrust developing a functional corporate website to the 1MDE full-service digital marketing agency.