As an IT business owner, you are aware that the digital market is exploding with opportunity right now – especially for service businesses. With this in mind, you’ve decided to build a website. But, what’s the best website design for an IT company? Does marketing a service-based business website differ from other types of businesses?
You’re asking the right kinds of questions! Let’s start with your website, then move to marketing.
What’s the Best Website Design for My IT Company?
A local IT company is unique. It’s a service-based business, usually small-to-mid-size, with an emphasis on the communities in its service area. Most important to you, as an IT business owner, is getting found by the right people online. That’s where we start when designing a website for an IT company: who is looking for you online, and how will they find you?
That’s where we start when designing a website for an IT company: who is looking for you online, and how will they find you?
Get to Know Your Customers
Your first step is to get to know your customers as well as possible. That means you have to figure out what type of person needs your IT services.
Who needs your services?
If you sell services to businesses, you’re a b2b service provider. As such, it’s likely you’ll offer your services to a range of businesses. List out the types of businesses you currently work with or are able to service.
Think about the person you routinely contact or communicate with on your b2b IT projects. Is it the business owner? An internal IT tech? It’s vital to determine the person within the company who needs your services. This is the person who is likely to find your IT company online.
Figure out what this person needs from your business. How would she refer to the services she needs? In other words, if this person were to use Google to search for IT companies, what terms would she type? These are the terms – the keywords – you want to target.
Think it through: if Linda from Schmakel Dentistry needs help to support her network, she’ll type in something like, “IT Tech Support” or “IT Service Company” – that means you need a webpage dedicated to that key term. If you create this dedicated page that targets this keyword, you have a much greater chance of getting your business to the top of Google than if you don’t.
Where are your customers located?
Define your service area. Many service businesses are either local or regional. If local, your business targets a smaller area than if you are a regional business. Regional businesses offer a greater challenge, as they must target a broader, more diverse area.
Get Found Online
Before you build your IT company website, figure out how you will get found online. How will your customers get to your website?
It isn’t enough to build a website and launch it online. You need to define a strategy for bringing people to your website. It’s best to define this strategy before you build your website.
How will customers find you?
There are several ways to bring in local customers to your website. You need to determine which ways you will employ on your website and in your marketing campaign.
If you plan to bring in traffic through Google, that’s great! But in order to do this, you’ll need to complete a few tasks:
- Make sure your website performs properly
- Build a responsive website for mobile visitors
- Determine the major keyword for which you want to rank
- Build a page that targets each major keyword
- Include a blog in your website to publish fresh content
Using e-mail to drive customers to your website is an excellent idea. E-mail is very effective at bringing in new and returning traffic.
Here’s what you’ll need:
- Professional business e-mail account
- Branded e-mail template
- Content (information to e-mail to people)
- List of e-mail addresses to contact
- E-mail schedule
Social Media
Most of your customers use a social media platform. That means you need to identify the platforms your customers use most so that you can communicate with them.
- Research your customers to identify the best social media platforms to use
- Create a business account on the chosen platform(s)
- Design a professional profile image and banner to use
- Content (images, videos, links, etc. to post on social media)
Website Links
One of the most important things you can do to get found is to build links. It’s vital to build links, because Google uses links to rank websites in its search results. The better quality and overall quantity of links built to your website, the better.
- Find link opportunities online
- Explore online directories to list your IT company
- Write guest posts for relevant online blogs
- Collaborate with another company on YouTube
- Use social media influencers to build links to your site
Your Website Design
Now that we have all the research out of the way, you’re ready to start to plan your website project.
What pages do you need?
You’re a service company with a local or regional service area. Therefore, the following pages should be on your website:
- Homepage
- Services
- Products – if needed
- About Company
- Meet Team
- Contact Us
- Blog
The pages above are the most basic pages you must include on your website. These pages are what customers want. There is proof of this, too, in multiple website usability studies. The following information is from KoMarketing‘s 2015 usability study.
“When you get to a vendor website, which section of the site do you look at first?”
- 47% Products and Services
- 33% Home page
- 16% About / Company Information
“Once you’re on the Home page, what information do you want to see available?” (respondents were able to choose more than one answer)
- 86% Products and Services
- 64% Contact Info
- 52% About / Company Information
51% of people think “thorough contact information” is the most important element missing from many company websites.
“When you get to an internal page on a vendor website from a referral site or search engine, how do you orient yourself?”
- 50% Navigation Menu
- 36% Company Logo (linked to homepage)
What “must have” information do you want to see on the Products and Services page?
- 78% Pricing
- 62% Shipping
- 52% Reviews
- 47% Details about Tech Support
What should your website look like?
Your design can make or break the effectiveness of your website. A professionally designed website boosts your IT company’s credibility. In fact, Adobe found that 75% of user judgment about your business’s credibility is based on your website’s design.
What do you put on your banner? Should your banner rotate?
For your homepage banner, we suggest you pick one message and one action you’d like your customers to perform. We do not recommend a rotating banner, because they aren’t very effective.
Do you need professional photography?
Yes!
Photography will make or break your IT company’s web design, believe us. Professional photography takes your website from average to seriously stunning.
If you can’t afford a complete round of professional photography, at least invest in profile photos of you and your team.
Stock photography has a (limited) place in IT website design. If, for some reason, you need to include stock photos on your website, ensure that they are professionally shot. You do not want to use amateur photography anywhere on your website, unless it’s a casual, authentic photo that represents your actual team. We suggest you save amateur photography for social media.
5 Things Your IT Company Website Needs
Here is a very basic list of five elements your IT company should consider to make your website its best:
- Design
- Development
- Support
- Photography
- Content
You’ll require each of these elements to be successful online. Again, start with your customers. Find out who they are and what they want. Figure out where they spend their time online (do they use Google? Social media?).
Get the Best Web Design
There are a lot of no-cost websites online, and you’ve probably already check out a few of them. But to really connect to your customers, build a strong brand, and boost sales, you may want to consider a custom website design.
What About Development?
The other element you need is professional development for your website and ongoing support. This is a truly vital element that many IT companies overlook. The performance of your website is tied to its effectiveness as a marketing tool. If your website is slow to load, if images don’t load, or you have broken links on your site, your visitors will leave.
Find a Support System
Having a support system in place is also necessary for any professional company website. No matter how technically gifted you are, websites are different from IT. At Artonic we love working with IT companies, because most IT business owners understand a lot of the technical elements of web design.
However, a support team is there to support you – no matter what time of the day or night. If you have a task that needs to be handled quickly, you can call them. It also saves you a lot of time, so you can focus on running your business instead of working on your website’s performance.
Photograph Your Team
Showcase authentic images of your team, your building, and your customers. Get photos of your team performing the services you offer. Your customers want to view these types of images. Professional photography helps you to connect with your customers, build trust, and boost credibility.
Content
Frequently overlooked, ignored, and even shunned, website content is the heart and soul of your IT company’s website.
- What your customers want.
- Boosts your Google ranks.
- Helps bring in traffic.
- Nurtures and converts sales leads.
Pay attention to the information you make available on your website. Is it what your customers want? If not, it’s simple enough to update it.
Marketing Your IT Company Website
As noted earlier, your strategy to bring traffic to your site must be considered before you design your website. This way, your marketing plan can be built into your website.
Here’s how:
- Build pages to target highly competitive keywords.
- Collect e-mail addresses to build a contact list you can market to through e-mail.
- Include links to your social media accounts.
- Include “social share” links – so customers can share your content easily on social media.
- Write for your blog on a regular basis.
Marketing is an ongoing activity for all successful IT companies. If you have questions about marketing your IT company, then you may find the following info helpful:
Marketing a Service-based Business
Advice for Small Business Owners Who Are Ready to Grow
The Real Reason Your Website is Failing
Service Business Case Studies
We’ve compiled several case studies on many of our clients who own service-based businesses. Our goal is to show you how to successfully market your service business. Below is a case study for one of our longest clients, Doctor Flue, inc. Check out the case study to find out how Doctor Flue, inc. grows its business.
If you’d like to view additional case studies, please view our client stories.
Say Hello!
Give Artonic a call or email us if you’re interested in website design, development, or marketing.
Michigan, USA