The corporate website has become a critical component of doing business in Singapore. An estimated 93% of business purchases start with an online search, so having a professional online presence is essential for lead generation and sales. Beyond driving commerce, a company’s website serves as a hub to share information about products, services, brand values, culture and more. For many people, it will be their first interaction with your business.
With Singapore’s world-class infrastructure and tech-savvy population, expectations for corporate websites are high. Users want sites that are fast, mobile-friendly, easy to navigate and filled with compelling content. The bar has been raised, but the good news is the tools and skills needed to build an effective corporate site are more accessible than ever. By following modern best practices around design, content and technology, any company can create a website that fosters engagement and conversions.
The corporate website has emerged as a make-or-break factor in today’s digital economy. Investing the time and resources into an optimized site can pay dividends through increased sales, traffic, and brand awareness. This guide will explore the key steps and latest trends for building the best corporate website in Singapore.
Determine Your Goals
The first step in building the best corporate website in Singapore is to clearly define your goals. This will shape many aspects of your website, from the design and content to the metrics you use for success.
Think about the primary purpose of your new website. Is it focused on promoting your brand? Generating leads and sales? Providing customer support? Defining clear business goals will allow you to architect your site to best achieve them.
Some common goals for corporate websites include:
Branding – Promoting brand awareness, communicating your mission and values, shaping brand perception
Lead generation – Capturing visitor contact information through calls-to-action and forms
Sales – Driving online purchases of products or services
Customer support – Providing self-service support resources and contact information
Recruiting – Attracting and hiring top talent by promoting your employer brand
Thought leadership – Positioning your organization and employees as trusted industry experts
Prioritize your most important goals for the site and identify key performance indicators to track. This focus will inform your content strategy, user experience, and website technology decisions. With clearly defined goals at the start, you’ll be set up for website success.
Choose the Right Platform
The platform you choose for your corporate website will have a big impact on your ability to create and manage content. The two most popular open source CMS (content management system) platforms are WordPress and Drupal. Here’s an overview of the pros and cons of each:
WordPress
Pros of using WordPress:
– Easy to use and intuitive admin interface
– Simple to install and maintain
– Lots of free and paid themes/templates available
– Huge selection of plugins to add functionality
– Great for blogs and basic websites
– Very customizable and flexible
– Strong community support
– Unimited SEO features tweak allowed
Cons of using WordPress
– Not as robust for large enterprise sites
– Potential security vulnerabilities if not updated
– Hosting requires PHP and MySQL
Drupal
Pros of using Drupal:
– Very powerful and scalable for complex sites
– Granular content access permissions
– Thousands of modules to extend functionality
– Enterprise-level support available
Cons of using Drupal
– Steeper learning curve for beginners
– More difficult development and theming
– Slower site editing compared to WordPress
– Smaller base of designers and developers
– Require more server resources to run
Both WordPress and Drupal are great open source CMS platforms with large communities behind them. For smaller websites, WordPress offers an easier path, while Drupal provides more advanced options for large enterprise websites. Assess your specific needs and requirements to determine which platform is the best fit.
Optimize Site Speed
Site speed is a critical aspect of your website that directly impacts user experience and SEO. With 53% of mobile site visits abandoned if pages take over 3 seconds to load, ensuring fast load times should be a top priority.
There are several ways to optimize the speed of your corporate website:
Minify code – Minifying HTML, CSS and JavaScript files removes unnecessary characters, reduces file sizes and speeds up load times. This simple step can improve page load speed by up to 20-50%.
Optimize images – Compress image file sizes and lazy load images that are below the fold. Image optimization can reduce page size by 60% or more.
Implement caching – Caching stores website files locally so pages load faster on repeat visits. Page load times can be improved by 10-40% using caching.
Use a CDN – A content delivery network (CDN) distributes content from servers closest to website visitors. This reduces latency and improves load speeds.
Limit redirects – Avoid too many redirects as each one requires additional load time. Keep redirects to a minimum.
Reduce server response time – Upgrading hosting plans and optimizing databases and scripts can help improve server response time.
With page speed now a ranking factor in Google searches, optimizing website speed should be a high priority. By implementing the tips above, corporate websites can significantly improve their speed and deliver better user experiences.
Mobile Responsiveness
Mobile usage in Singapore has exploded in recent years, with over 90% of the population now owning a smartphone. This means that the majority of your website traffic is likely coming from mobile devices. Having a mobile-friendly site is no longer optional – it’s absolutely critical for any business in Singapore.
There are two main options for making your site work on mobile:
Responsive design: With responsive design, your website dynamically adapts to fit the screen size of any device. Content is resized and reorganized seamlessly. This allows for a unified website that works well on both desktop and mobile. Responsive design is the preferred approach today.
Separate mobile site: You can also create a dedicated mobile site, optimized specifically for phone and tablet screens. This involves building a separate site just for mobile users. The downside is that you then have to maintain two different sites.
The best practice is to go fully responsive. This creates one website that works beautifully on any device. When visitors access your site on a phone or tablet, elements will automatically resize and rearrange to fit the smaller screen. Images, text, buttons and other elements will stack vertically in a mobile-friendly way.
Testing is crucial to ensure your site works well on all devices. Be sure to test your responsive site on various device sizes, from small smartphones up to desktops. Check that elements don’t overlap, text is readable, images resize properly, and calls-to-action are visible. Your website should provide an excellent user experience regardless of the device.
Navigation and IA
A website’s navigation and information architecture (IA) are crucial for providing an intuitive user experience. The navigation should make it easy for visitors to find what they are looking for quickly.
Some best practices for navigation and IA include:
– Keep the main navigation simple with no more than 5-7 top-level items. Try not to nest navigation more than 2 levels deep.
– Organize site sections and categories in a logical hierarchy based on users’ needs. Group related content together.
– Use clear, descriptive navigation labels that match what users will be searching for. Avoid ambiguous terms like “About Us” or industry jargon.
– Include search functionality and site maps to aid navigation. Allow multiple ways to reach key content.
– Be consistent with navigation, IA and URLs across all pages. Don’t use different labeling and organization on different sections.
– Analyze site analytics to identify common user paths. Optimize IA based on how people actually navigate your site.
– Test IA with representative users to identify any confusion. Iteratively improve the navigation experience.
– Use breadcrumb trails to show site hierarchy and help users orient themselves.
– Place important site-wide navigation prominently at the top of pages for easy access.
– Ensure navigation works seamlessly on mobile devices. Use responsive design and hamburger menus as needed.
Having an intuitive, seamless site navigation and IA is crucial for keeping visitors engaged and allowing them to find the content they need. Follow UX best practices when structuring your site’s information architecture. Test with real users and iterate to optimize the experience.
Compelling Content
Quality content is the backbone of every successful website. Visitors expect to find useful information tailored specifically to them when they arrive at your site.
Your corporate website should include a variety of comprehensive, insightful content types like blog posts, ebooks, case studies, and infographics. This content should directly address your audience’s needs and pain points. For example, an accounting firm may want to publish case studies on how they helped clients reduce their tax bill or increase profits.
All content should be optimized for SEO by incorporating relevant keywords in title tags, headers, meta descriptions, alt text, and the body. This helps search engines understand what the content is about. However, keyword optimization should not reduce readability. The content must first and foremost provide value to site visitors.
Blog posts are one of the most effective types of content because they drive recurring traffic as you continually add new posts over time. Devote resources to regularly publishing blog content around your products, industry, and other topics your audience cares about.
In addition to text content, incorporate visual assets like photos, illustrations, infographics, and videos. These help break up long blocks of text and can often convey information more efficiently while engaging visitors.
Clear Calls-To-Action
Calls-to-action (CTAs) are a critical element of an effective corporate website. CTAs motivate visitors to take desired actions, like signing up for a newsletter, requesting a demo, contacting sales, or purchasing a product.
Where you place your CTAs on the page can impact their performance. Put prominent CTAs “above the fold” so visitors see them immediately without having to scroll down the page. Also consider having CTAs in sidebars, page footers, popups, and at the end of blog posts.
To create compelling CTAs:
– Use action-driven language like “Get Started Now” or “Request Demo” instead of passive phrases like “Learn More.”
– Make the CTA stand out visually by using high contrast colors, bold or larger font, buttons, etc.
– Keep copy short and concise – aim for 2-5 words.
– Use directional arrows, icons, or graphics to reinforce the action.
– Test different phrases until you find the highest converting one.
– Only have one primary CTA per page or section to avoid confusion.
– Make sure the CTA matches the visitor’s stage in the sales funnel.
Effective CTAs can significantly lift conversion rates for lead generation, sales, and other critical website goals. Continuously optimize and A/B test your CTAs to improve performance.
Encourage Social Sharing
In today’s digital world, social media is key for driving traffic and engagement with your corporate website. Include prominent social media sharing buttons on pages to encourage visitors to share content.
Position the sharing buttons in natural break points within content, such as at the end of blog posts or resource pages. Make sure the icon designs are simple and recognizable.
Going beyond just adding social buttons, actively encourage social sharing within your content. When appropriate, prompt readers to share pages with colleagues or connections who may find the information useful.
Social media can extend the reach of your content far beyond just visitors to your site. A call-to-action to share not only builds awareness, but also improves engagement and positions your company as producing valuable content worth recommending.
Remind visitors that sharing helps support your work in producing useful corporate content. Build a community invested in amplifying your message.
Analytics and Optimization
One of the most important steps in building an effective corporate website is using analytics and A/B testing to optimize the site. Analytics give you invaluable insights into how visitors are interacting with your site and where they are encountering friction in the customer journey.
Popular analytics platforms like Google Analytics allow you to track key metrics like bounce rate, time on site, and which pages get the most traffic. Analyzing this data will reveal opportunities to improve page layouts, calls-to-action, content, and more.
A/B testing takes optimization a step further by setting up controlled experiments to directly compare different versions of pages or site elements. For example, you could test how conversion rates differ between a green and red call-to-action button. This takes the guesswork out of design and content decisions.
As you roll out changes to your site, continue monitoring analytics to measure the impact. It’s important to take an iterative, data-driven approach to optimization. Treat your website as a continuous work in progress rather than a one-time project.
The companies with the most effective websites don’t achieve success by accident. They diligently analyze site metrics, run frequent A/B tests, and update the site based on what the data indicates. Putting in the effort to optimize will ensure your corporate website accomplishes your business goals.