Stop interrupting what people are interested in, and be what people are interested in. We have written several articles about adaptation and change. There has been tremendous change online since the advent of the internet, yes? And the amount of change in this arena and in consumer response, while still in its infancy, continues to accelerate. So it is essential to adapt the online presence of your business to these changes with components of the best websites.

Have you ever wondered what makes a website truly great? So great that traffic is high, people are engaging with demand are off the charts, and many new customer relationships being built.

How often do you find a new website that makes you stop and stare? It screams to you that it is a modern-day masterpiece. The aesthetic and user experience is off the charts.

It’s new, innovative, and, frankly makes you wish you could design a web site for your business with all the great features of the one you are looking at.

Here is a neat example:

In 1865, Gregor Mendel published the paper that established him as the father of genetics. However, it went largely unnoticed until it was rediscovered decades later and became widely recognized as one of the great discoveries in the history of science. Sometimes design is like that.

Think about what makes it stand out to you? Is it a beautiful, award-winning graphic design? A killer SEO strategy? Its interactive, cutting-edge user experience? Or is it simply tied to the amount of monetary investment? The bigger the budget, the better the website, right?

The heart of most marketing campaigns has been the website. The biggest problem with most websites, however, is that they are instantly forgettable. They say the same thing as your competitors.

You see two possible results from this problem. The first is that most customers will quickly lose interest and click away from the site.

The second is that, if they stay, they’ll find no reason to select you, because there’s no discriminating message. They click away with no reason to return.

So what is the magic of creating a potentially eye-catching web site? Consider the following xx elements we use to build award-winning web site designs and redesigns:

Best websites … know their target community

When starting a web project, many think about who we are, what’s special about us, and how we should communicate our unique selling points.

But our readers aren’t interested in us, our business, and our products

They just want to know what’s in it for them.

Take the time to grab insights of all types from your customers. What keeps them up at night, both professionally and personally? What will they be worrying about at the time of your talk? Maybe they’re more concerned about what to have for lunch?

I once was given the opportunity to redesign the website of a beer company, but I knew very little about beer (I’m more of a wine guy). So, I hosted a beer tasting with friends so I could try different kinds of beer and learn from my colleagues on the subject.

Your community is more likely to be engaged and believe you if you’ve made efforts like this to understand them. Otherwise, you’re just a traveling salesman, who is never much appreciated, right?

Establish clear objectives

We’ll keep our objectives as simple as we can. The simple objective … turn marketing into content, not content into marketing. Provide all types of content that people are interested in, talk about and share with their friends.

Components of the best websites design … have clear description

Many websites fail to clearly and easily answer “Who I am,” “What I do,” and/or “What can you (the visitor) do here.”

If you’re a well-known brand or company (i.e. Apple for example) you can probably get away with not having to describe who you are and what you do; but the reality is, many enterprise businesses still need to answer these questions so that each visitor knows they are in the “right place.”

If visitors can’t identify what it is you do or where to go to find what they need within seconds, they won’t stick around long.

Essence of Design

Eye-catching visual design

The popularity of infographics and other visual social media platforms like Instagram and Pinterest show how important visual media is to marketing and capturing the attention of your community. The cliché “a picture is worth a thousand words” also holds true on LinkedIn.

Images make your LinkedIn company page visually appealing to visitors, so they’re more likely to consume and share your content—and direct their connections to your company page.

Best looking websites … show & tell with videos

You don’t need to be told that the use of online video is growing rapidly. Just take a look at these key points:

In 2013, over 52 billion videos were viewed online (MarketingCharts)

52% of consumers say that watching product videos makes them more confident in online purchase decisions (Invodo)

An estimated 63 percent of social media comprises imagery. As such, visual platforms are playing an increasing role in social media for businesses

Video content like Vine and Instagram featuring micro-videos are another effective promotion tool for businesses absorbing stories to tell.

Spend the time to find the visual angle to your business’ story

There are many different video formats you can use to take your company page updates to the next level. Here are a few examples that we believe are most effective:

Short-form video

Short videos—less than 15 seconds—can be used to focus your message. You can use them to create a product look-book, demonstrate a product’s use or show an everyday life hack. Vine and Instagram both offer short-form videos that fit well with this style.

Event video

Event videos are trusted worthier than any scripted video because they contain the best parts of your company, your products, your customers and your culture. They aren’t an outright advertisement for your company or brand and usually include external or third-party content.

Think of event videos as testimonials, as opposed to ads.

Interview video

Whether you interview experts from outside your company or key employees inside your organization, Q&A videos let you highlight your relationship with industry experts.

Make it easy to find information

According to the Science of Website Redesign, 76% of consumers say the most important factor in a website’s design is “the website makes it easy for me to find what I want.”

The most important part of a perfectly designed website is connecting the user with the information they came to find. If your design is easy to navigate and captures the interest of the user, you have likely made good design decisions.

There are simple ways to organize your website that makes it easy for the visitor to navigate. Microsoft is one example of a website with multiple products, most of them as a sub-domain under the primary microsoft.com domain.

Avoid clutter

Edward Tufte once said, “Clutter and confusion are failures of design, not attributes of information.”

Often, marketers tend to over-complicate their websites with too many elements or far too much information. And that is what causes clutter. In fact, some of the most effective websites are also the simplest.

Here are a few ways this website achieves a clutter-free aesthetic:

Clear headlines, sub-headlines, and body copy
Lots of whitespaces
Only four primary colors and great contrast
Great use of icons and graphics

Stylize the Experience

Design an experience that will be memorable … create the visual of your value, the core message. Take some risks here to stand out and be different … no risks, no rewards.

Resonate

Strike a nerve to grab attention and connect with your audience. What makes your website such a powerful marketing and branding tool is its ability to communicate on verbal, visual, and metaphoric levels.

If you are not using all 3 levels of communications, you are missing opportunities to resonate and connect.

Show your brand culture and personality

Showing the human side of your company is an important way to create trust with your followers and turn them into fans.

Warby Parker posted an update to share its annual report. People who clicked through found several components that show the company’s human side. ( See our article on Warby Parker’s humanized graphic design.)

Include fun, behind-the-scenes information in your content to help readers make a deeper connection with you.

Simple and useful content

What types of content should you include in this section? White papers, case studies, blog posts, a list of products and services, how-tos and more. Stretch your imagination to try new types of topics.

Solves Problem for Your Community

Publish content that shows your expertise in the marketplace so readers come to you for a solution when they have a problem.

Enlighten and Inform

Provide your key discriminating message woven into the central theme of the site. This is the second most important element of your site … convincing customers your story is the best and the reason to select you. Avoid selling at all costs!

Engage the Audience

Grab attention … on some problem your audience shares, and then address the solution.

This is the most important part … the part that compels viewers to want to see and hear the entire story/show!

Many people follow your company page as a way to engage and interact with you.

To encourage that engagement, ask people questions and reply to their comments. You can also host contests.

For example, HootSuite posted an update that asked its followers to share the social media story that was most memorable to them in 2013. Some of the responses were included in an article that highlighted the stories.

Entertain

Be memorable and bold … be worth the audience’s time and attention. Use subtle marketing techniques. The challenge is to turn marketing into memorable content that informs, enlightens, and entertains at the same time.

Highlight products and services with showcase pages

Think of showcase pages as a way to highlight your specialized content. They let you customize your messages and engage different audience segments based on their product interest.

Create and curate showcase pages to make sure your customers can easily learn about the product or service that most interests them.

Compel Action

We all understand the need for a call to action. However, you can only deliver on the action call by a convincing story. A story catching attention and providing relevant messages for your target customers. Bring them back for more.

Optimize the site’s ability to be found

I am a big proponent of writing for human beings instead of search engines. With that said, if you want people to find you when looking for great content in your niche on Google or Bing, some optimization will be needed.

This optimization, also called SEO (Search Engine Optimization), includes a certain number of elements that, implemented well, will truly make a difference in the success of your blog.

Mobile Optimize

By the end of 2014, more people will access the web via mobile devices more than the PC or iPad. Still, 46% of mobile users have difficulty interacting with websites — so it makes sense that 62% of companies that designed a website specifically for mobile increase sales.

So if you haven’t gone mobile yet like these guys, now’s the time.

The bottom line

Make your thinking vivid by including what comes naturally to you. For example, you may not be able to imagine sequences of images very well, but you may excel in imagining other modalities such as smell, touch, and sound.

You may be excellent in infusing your visualization with emotional charge and great feelings. DO not feel compelled to stay within any single modality but make your visualizations and imagination vivid and rich by including numerous modalities.

Your senses are wonderful tools for you to engage while unleashing the power of the imaginative mind. Make it colorful and exciting.

Make your imagination your ally and your best friend.

What do you think? Have you used any of these tactics on your Company Page? Do you have other tips you’d like to add?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to innovating your social media strategy?

Do you have a lesson about making your social media better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.

Have you ever wondered what makes a website truly great? So great that traffic is high, people are engaging with demand are off the charts, and many new customer relationships being built.

How often do you find a new website that makes you stop and stare? It screams to you that it is a modern-day masterpiece. The aesthetic and user experience is off the charts.

It’s new, innovative, and, frankly makes you wish you could design a web site for your business with all the great features of the one you are looking at.

Here is a neat example:

In 1865, Gregor Mendel published the paper that established him as the father of genetics. However, it went largely unnoticed until it was rediscovered decades later and became widely recognized as one of the great discoveries in the history of science. Sometimes design is like that.

Think about what makes it stand out to you? Is it a beautiful, award-winning graphic design? A killer SEO strategy? Its interactive, cutting-edge user experience? Or is it simply tied to the amount of monetary investment? The bigger the budget, the better the website, right?

The heart of most marketing campaigns has been the website. The biggest problem with most websites, however, is that they are instantly forgettable. They say the same thing as your competitors.

You see two possible results from this problem. The first is that most customers will quickly lose interest and click away from the site.

The second is that, if they stay, they’ll find no reason to select you, because there’s no discriminating message. They click away with no reason to return.

Related post: Some Great Story and Storytelling Examples to Study

So what is the magic of creating a potentially eye-catching web site? Consider the following xx elements we use to build award-winning web site designs and redesigns:

Best websites … know their target community

When starting a web project, many think about who we are, what’s special about us, and how we should communicate our unique selling points.

But our readers aren’t interested in us, our business, and our products

They just want to know what’s in it for them.

Take the time to grab insights of all types from your customers. What keeps them up at night, both professionally and personally? What will they be worrying about at the time of your talk? Maybe they’re more concerned about what to have for lunch?

I once was given the opportunity to redesign the website of a beer company, but I knew very little about beer (I’m more of a wine guy). So, I hosted a beer tasting with friends so I could try different kinds of beer and learn from my colleagues on the subject.

Your community is more likely to be engaged and believe you if you’ve made efforts like this to understand them. Otherwise, you’re just a traveling salesman, who is never much appreciated, right?

Establish clear objectives

We’ll keep our objectives as simple as we can. The simple objective … turn marketing into content, not content into marketing. Provide all types of content that people are interested in, talk about and share with their friends.

Components of the best websites design … have clear description

Many websites fail to clearly and easily answer “Who I am,” “What I do,” and/or “What can you (the visitor) do here.”

If you’re a well-known brand or company (i.e. Apple for example) you can probably get away with not having to describe who you are and what you do; but the reality is, many enterprise businesses still need to answer these questions so that each visitor knows they are in the “right place.”

If visitors can’t identify what it is you do or where to go to find what they need within seconds, they won’t stick around long.

Essence of Design

Eye-catching visual design

The popularity of infographics and other visual social media platforms like Instagram and Pinterest show how important visual media is to marketing and capturing the attention of your community. The cliché “a picture is worth a thousand words” also holds true on LinkedIn.

Images make your LinkedIn company page visually appealing to visitors, so they’re more likely to consume and share your content—and direct their connections to your company page.

Best looking websites … show & tell with videos

You don’t need to be told that the use of online video is growing rapidly. Just take a look at these key points:

In 2013, over 52 billion videos were viewed online (MarketingCharts)

52% of consumers say that watching product videos makes them more confident in online purchase decisions (Invodo)

An estimated 63 percent of social media comprises imagery. As such, visual platforms are playing an increasing role in social media for businesses

Video content like Vine and Instagram featuring micro-videos are another effective promotion tool for businesses absorbing stories to tell.

Spend the time to find the visual angle to your business’ story

There are many different video formats you can use to take your company page updates to the next level. Here are a few examples that we believe are most effective:

Short-form video

Short videos—less than 15 seconds—can be used to focus your message. You can use them to create a product look-book, demonstrate a product’s use or show an everyday life hack. Vine and Instagram both offer short-form videos that fit well with this style.

Event video

Event videos are trusted worthier than any scripted video because they contain the best parts of your company, your products, your customers and your culture. They aren’t an outright advertisement for your company or brand and usually include external or third-party content.

Think of event videos as testimonials, as opposed to ads.

Interview video

Whether you interview experts from outside your company or key employees inside your organization, Q&A videos let you highlight your relationship with industry experts.

Make it easy to find information

According to the Science of Website Redesign, 76% of consumers say the most important factor in a website’s design is “the website makes it easy for me to find what I want.”

The most important part of a perfectly designed website is connecting the user with the information they came to find. If your design is easy to navigate and captures the interest of the user, you have likely made good design decisions.

There are simple ways to organize your website that makes it easy for the visitor to navigate. Microsoft is one example of a website with multiple products, most of them as a sub-domain under the primary microsoft.com domain.

Avoid clutter

Edward Tufte once said, “Clutter and confusion are failures of design, not attributes of information.”

Often, marketers tend to over-complicate their websites with too many elements or far too much information. And that is what causes clutter. In fact, some of the most effective websites are also the simplest.

Here are a few ways this website achieves a clutter-free aesthetic:

Stylize the Experience

Design an experience that will be memorable … create the visual of your value, the core message. Take some risks here to stand out and be different … no risks, no rewards.

Resonate

Strike a nerve to grab attention and connect with your audience. What makes your website such a powerful marketing and branding tool is its ability to communicate on verbal, visual, and metaphoric levels.

If you are not using all 3 levels of communications, you are missing opportunities to resonate and connect.

Show your brand culture and personality

Showing the human side of your company is an important way to create trust with your followers and turn them into fans.

Warby Parker posted an update to share its annual report. People who clicked through found several components that show the company’s human side. ( See our article on Warby Parker’s humanized graphic design.)

Include fun, behind-the-scenes information in your content to help readers make a deeper connection with you.

Simple and useful content

What types of content should you include in this section? White papers, case studies, blog posts, a list of products and services, how-tos and more. Stretch your imagination to try new types of topics.

Solves Problem for Your Community

Publish content that shows your expertise in the marketplace so readers come to you for a solution when they have a problem.

Enlighten and Inform

Provide your key discriminating message woven into the central theme of the site. This is the second most important element of your site … convincing customers your story is the best and the reason to select you. Avoid selling at all costs!

Engage the Audience

Grab attention … on some problem your audience shares, and then address the solution.

This is the most important part … the part that compels viewers to want to see and hear the entire story/show!

Many people follow your company page as a way to engage and interact with you.

To encourage that engagement, ask people questions and reply to their comments. You can also host contests.

For example, HootSuite posted an update that asked its followers to share the social media story that was most memorable to them in 2013. Some of the responses were included in an article that highlighted the stories.

Entertain

Be memorable and bold … be worth the audience’s time and attention. Use subtle marketing techniques. The challenge is to turn marketing into memorable content that informs, enlightens, and entertains at the same time.

Highlight products and services with showcase pages

Think of showcase pages as a way to highlight your specialized content. They let you customize your messages and engage different audience segments based on their product interest.

Create and curate showcase pages to make sure your customers can easily learn about the product or service that most interests them.

Compel Action

We all understand the need for a call to action. However, you can only deliver on the action call by a convincing story. A story catching attention and providing relevant messages for your target customers. Bring them back for more.

Optimize the site’s ability to be found