My father once said to me that he hated being in business, because every year, there was a new cost you had to have. He had just bought a car phone at the time, that went with the new computer, the printer, the fax, the two landlines, a business card for himself and his workers on top of all his industry specific equipment.

These days, most people would add a website, and an email address, to that list. But unlike the costs mentioned above, most of which perform a specific task, a website has a multitude of tasks to perform. In no particular order, a website is:

  • A place to find a business’s contact details
  • A place to find a business’s address
  • A marketing tool, that can attract potential customers.
  • A way to sell to potential customers
  • A place to put important business information, like return policies

This makes a website a complicated business tool, and one that is easy to get wrong. And unless your website can fulfill all these needs, it isn’t serving you properly.

Checklist: What Every Website Should, Have

Every website should have the following things:

  1. A Contact us Page labeled “Contact Us” – people skim webpages, and look for things that they need. Labelling contact details as “Contact Us” helps people who want to, make easy contact.
  2. A phone number on every page – preferably in the header. Again, the easier it is contact you, the better.
  3. Multiple ways to contact you – Provide multiple email addresses (it doesn’t matter if they all go to the same person) for different items, multiple numbers (mobile + landline), fax and a contact form. The more ways someone can contact you, the better.
  4. A call to action on every page near your content – you have explained what you do, now convince me to do something. If you have a services page, after each service, have a call to action like “For more information, call Steve on 555-1234“.
  5. A submission to Google Local – Google maps is showing up on a lot more searches, and at the ridiculously low price of “free”, a Google local listing really is a nobrainer.

If your site doesn’t have these five items, you are likely missing a real opportunity to have your website drive leads.