Last month, I talked about the important questions to ask before starting your new website project. To offer you more insights into best practices, I thought I could focus on another important aspect of your website: what it says about your company. Your website should speak for your brand. Ultimately, your website is an online hub for your organization. It’s often the first place people go to find out about your company and the first place where they interact with your brand. You should take advantage and carefully craft the brand message you want to convey!

1. 3 Ways Your Website Can Define Your Brand
Last month, I talked about the important questions to
ask before starting your new website project. To offer
you more insights into best practices, I thought I could
focus on another important aspect of your website:
what it says about your company.
Your website should speak for your brand.
Ultimately, your website is an online hub for your
organization. It’s often the first place people go to find out about your company and
the first place where they interact with your brand. You should take advantage and
carefully craft the brand message you want to convey!
In fact, here are three things you should include on your website to help define your
brand:
1. Who you are. Take the time to introduce website visitors to your company and
its people. These elements help personify your business, give insights into your
culture and help clients and prospective clients forge a relationship with your
organization. Through things like photos and profiles in your website copy,
LinkedIn profile links and blog spotlights, your website should give visitors a
firm idea of what your company is all about. When I’m working with clients on
their new website projects, we’ll work together to help identify those core
elements of “who they are” and how to best portray those through their
website.
2. What you’re about. The most obvious part of your website is the ability to tell
(and show) prospective clients what your company does. From outlining your
capabilities and offerings to sharing a bit about your history, your website
should also show clients and prospective clients what you have to offer. Visual
aspects (like PDFs, presentations, videos, etc.) can help bring your website to
life and show that your brand is at the cutting edge. Here at ClearEdge, we
work with clients to make their presentations or other multimedia materials
“web ready” so that they are optimized for their new website and can be easily
viewed or downloaded by guests. This offers another level of depth and value
to your website.
3. How to reach you. This can seem a bit obvious to some, but you’d be surprised
how many websites make it incredibly difficult to find contact information.
Don’t bury your contact info – display it prominently on every page of your
website. The header and footer are common places for a phone number, or
better yet, social media icons. Your clients and prospective clients don’t just
want to connect with you on the phone or via email – they want to connect
socially. So make it easy for them to “like” or “follow” you, then be sure to
update your profiles frequently with relevant content that helps further
illustrate the first two points I mentioned above. When I’m working with new
website clients here at ClearEdge, we are often working simultaneously as an
outsourced partner for social media management, so that we can solidify their
messaging and elevate their brand across the web.

2. These three things offer a good start for organizations looking to define their brand on
a new website. What else do you think company websites should include to educate
visitors about your brand?
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