IPD guides for success in export
Website development and design
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How to use the ‘IPD guide on website
development and design’
+ Looking at the graphic, the website is at the core for a
reason: it’s the main platform for conversion. Social Social
media and search engines have a key role to drive media
traffic to the website.
+ This guide helps you and your company better
Digital
understand how to optimize your website. It mainly Marketing Website
marketing
focusses on your digital strategy, including your strategy
strategy
website and – interlinked – search engine
optimization. It is not a comprehensive guide to all
website matters in any industry, but instead it is a ’key Search
issues’ guide which every international operating engine
company should know about.
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In this guide you will learn:
What website strategy is
What the key success factors are
How you effectively use content on your website
Why you should focus on call-to-actions
All about website usability
How you optimize your search engine ranking
Why content marketing is the key to conversion
The importance of monitoring and evaluation
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Website strategy as part of customer
journey
+ In each phase of the customer journey (see image), different digital marketing instruments dominate. They each
have a different role to play!
+ You see that especially in the early phases – from awareness to conversion (=choosing to buy) – your website and
search engine ranking are key in the customer journey
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Website strategy
Many websites offer lots of information but miss out on the question what purpose the information serves. Websites
that lack purpose often miss a strategic and action driven motivation. How can the information move visitors into action?
Don’t make the same mistake! Ask yourself:
1. Do you apply the website specifically in
relation to the customer journey?
2. Do you set objectives? What do you want
visitors to do?
3. Do you specify which target audiences you
prioritize?
4. Do you drive visitors into an action funnel?
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Website strategy
+ With every channel, you will also have different objectives in place.
+ The model below shows you what content, tone of voice, and SMART goals you can connect to your own meta
objective.
+ It is important to incorporate this into your website plan, before improving or setting up your company website.
Meta objective Content Tone of voice SMART Goal - KPI
- Product offer and value - #Blogs
- Brand awareness and proposition
loyalty - #(repeat) visitors
Website - Why you?
- Attention triggering
- Engagement - Visitors behaviour
- Persuasion - Convincing
- Trust building elements (funnel, bounce rate)
- Conversion
- Visuals - #Enquiries or orders
- Relevant keywords - Ranking in google
Google - Attention triggering
High ranking - Secure - #pages in high positions
- Convincing
- Responsive - Video ranking
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First steps
BEFORE YOU START WITH YOUR NEW WEBSITE, ASK YOURSELF:
1. What are your goals? Do you want more visibility, exchange with your target group or new customers?
2. Which hosting service do I want to use? Where are the provider's servers located? How much does the hosting
cost and what kind of customer service does the provider offer?
3. Which domain name should I choose? Which ending should I choose, .com, .net or the country ending?
4. Which target group do I want to address? What does the target group expect to find on my site?
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Domain: simple and search engine friendly
CHOOSE YOUR DOMAIN NAME WELL BY FOLLOWING THESE TIPS:
+ Ideally choose the name of your company as your domain name.
+ Make it easy to remember and easy to spell.
+ If your domain name is longer than two words, use a hyphen (“-”).
+ In the best case, use the .com extension. If this is already assigned, try .net, .org or your country ending.
+ Avoid numbers and special characters.
+ Make sure that the name is also mobile-friendly and is not changed by auto-correction.
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Homepage success factors
ENGAGE, EXCITE AND CONVINCE YOUR KEY CLIENTS
A successful homepage ticks the boxes of the following five elements. In less than five seconds, your visitor should be
able to find out:
1. What is your main offer to your key clients (based on their interest and needs)?
2. Why you? What makes you different? What are the benefits for the key clients? What is your promise?
3. Generate trust: experience, market coverage, testimonials, quality and sustainability management, certifications,
awards
4. Wow pictures and videos
5. Pull the visitor deeper into the site
In less than 5 seconds!
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Homepage success factors: example
A good practice: Skin Gourmet (Ghana) uses a great picture that immediately catches attention and supports the
main message and value proposition of the brand, which is cosmetics made of edible fruits. [Link]
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Homepage success factors
Why are images important? Tips and suggestions
+ Images draw attention of your visitors! + Pictures should communicate the product/benefit
+ Visually orientated societies – Instagram and reinforce the message
generation + Include tagline in lead picture, and a link
+ Faces and thus people draw special attention + Max 2 or 3 standardized image sizes
+ One picture says more than 1,000 words + Sliders (changing pictures) are not preferred
+ Professional images don’t need to be expensive,
e.g. image databases like shutterstock or fotolia
offer high-quality photos ([Link],
[Link], and [Link])
+ Compress the file size ([Link])
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Call-to-action
The focus of your website is getting visitors into the action funnel. Depending of what actions you desire of your target
audience, you add call-to-action buttons or links on your website. Strong ones can be the key to converting visitors
into clients.
Key factors to consider:
+ No dead ends on your pages
+ Button size should be large to draw attention
+ Use bright coloring for your buttons
+ Simple and straight forwards text: Learn more, Buy now, Contact us
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Call-to-action: example
A good practice: Frank about tea uses bright colored buttons and strong pictures that conveys their value proposition.
You spot multiple buttons that catch the attention: learn more, shop now, and shopping cart.
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Call-to-action: where, what, why
Call-to-action (CTA) Objective
- Read more
- Engage and trigger interest
- Learn more
Homepage - Discover…
- Into the action funnel
- Deeper into the site
- Contact us
- View details
- Persuade and convert
- Ask sample
Product landing page - Order now
- Into the order process
- Contact us
- View details
- Download brochure - Persuade and gain trust
About us - Watch video
- Contact us
- Contact us
- Relationship building
Footer - Subscribe to the newsletter
- Customer service
- Follow us
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Effective content: product pages
Product pages are essential to your website. It is the place to showcase what your offer. Make sure that you throw
in the following ingredients:
+ A product overview page
• With a picture grid, descriptions, and hyperlink to products
+ Product pages
• Use professional images
• State key benefits and characteristics (convey your value
proposition)
• Origin of the products
• Quality standards and certifications (use logo’s)
• Packaging information and shipping volume
• Seasonality and nutrition data
• Reviews, testimonials, or success stories
TIP: End your product page with a call-to-action!
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Effective content: product pages
A good practice: Tradin Organic uses landing pages with a professional picture, certification logo’s, information about
the origin of the product, and nutrition details. Of course, they end the product page with a call-to-action. In this case,
a contact form focused on questions concerning the product.
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Effective content: use of logos
In case you use logos of your certifications, respect the rules regarding logo usage. For example, in the case of the EU
organic logo, a user manual exists that defines rules, such as:
+ Original + Do not apply visual effects
+ Do not change the
+ Do not distort the logo
shape of the logo
+ Do not add text or + Do not change the color
graphics of the logo
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Effective content: about us
You want to give your visitors insight in what your organization is all about and showcase your purpose and team. The
about section should consist out of:
1. Your company’s vision and unique value proposition (UVP)
+ What do you offer, and what makes you stand out from the rest?
+ Your achievements, ambition, key values and CSR
+ Customer testimonials
2. Personal story of your company
+ History of your organization (good stories makers are memorable)
3. The team
+ Show your employees and give an impression of your workplace
+ Let your business culture shine through
TIP: Include a company video and finish with call-to-actions!
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Effective content: about us
Did you know that the about us is the second most visited page? People want to see people!
Personal storytelling is key:
+ Good stories are
memorable
+ It moves you and adds
emotion
+ Keep it personal, simple,
and authentic
+ Use quotes to add value
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Effective content: about us
WHAT DO YOU DO IN TERMS OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR)?
+ The advantage of emphasizing your CSR is that you add value to your image, by showing that you support fair
working conditions and take care of sustainable management of resources
+ Emphasize what your social and ecological responsibility is
+ E.g. - Do you support community projects?
- Do you apply special measures to reduce waste?
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Website usability
... the ease with which people can employ a tool in order to achieve a particular goal.
Place yourself in your client’s position:
+ What is interesting for your key client?
+ Is it easy to find it and navigate through your website?
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Website usability
A website is an action-oriented medium with users that have a scan and click mentality. Don’t expect the
people to read – keep it simple & short (KISS)!
+ Less is more: write short and compact
+ Use professional language
+ Use bold headers
+ Use list items (bullets)
+ Use pictures and video
+ Make conversion-oriented product landing pages
+ Most important items first – your offer
+ Share up-to-date information
+ Depending on your goals, your website should
be available in one or more languages
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Website usability: responsive design
…is an approach to web design that makes web pages render well on a variety of devices and window or screen sizes.
You should have a responsive design for all mobile
devices. Why?
+ People are increasingly using mobile devices
over desktops
+ Google has a mobile first strategy, important for
your ranking:
Images and font sizes need to adapt to
screen size
No zooming needed
No horizontal scrollbars
Whitespace around links and buttons
Do the test and check your responsiveness: [Link]/
And your browser compatibility: [Link]
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Website usability: navigation
An important element in usability is navigation. Consider the following:
+ Navigation should be accessible on every page
+ Use standard conventions, live up to user’s expectation
+ Always offer a home
+ Include a keyword search
+ Main menu should have max. 7 buttons
+ Place most important items after home
+ Mega menu in case of many pages (see next pages)
+ Include a fat footer at the bottom (see next pages)
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Website usability: navigation
MEGA MENU:
The mega menu unfolds when your mouse hovers over the menu items.
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Website usability: navigation
FAT FOOTER:
A fat footer is at the bottom of your website and the same on all pages.
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Website usability: fonts
+ Use clear, sans-serif fonts, e.g. Helvetica, Franklin or Univers
+ Use two, maximum three fonts, everything else becomes confusing
+ Pay attention to good legibility - appropriate font size (at least 8 points)
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Website usability: colors
+ Choose bright colors and strong contrasts in order to make your website more appealing.
+ Use your corporate colors if possible.
+ Don't use too many different colors to avoid overwhelming the viewer.
Strong contrast colors Bright colors
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SEO: Search engine optimization
The process of designing and improving a The practice of
website so it ranks high in the organic increasing quantity and quality of
search engine results when someone who traffic to the website.
doesn’t know your business searches for
the services or products you offer.
HOWEVER:
Websites should be designed for
human beings, not for search engines!
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SEO: 10 factors for your success
1. Keyword strategy and keyword rich content
2. Content marketing
3. Search engine friendly URL’s
4. The power of tags: meta, title, and alt
5. Google business
6. XML sitemap
7. External links and social media
8. 301 redirect
9. Speed and security
10. Mobile responsiveness
On the following pages, we will guide you through these factors..
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SEO
1. Keyword strategy and rich content
+ Choose keywords that your target
audience uses
+ Make use of longtail keywords (at least 2
or more keywords)
+ Unique per page
+ Related to your UVP and target audience
+ Incorporate keywords in your website
content
Example of a longtail keyword: Global G.A.P. certified pineapple exporter Ghana
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SEO
1. Keyword strategy and rich content
There are several tools available to define your keywords:
+ Google related search results
+ Yoast suggest
+ Tagcrowd (insight in keywords of competition)
+ Google Search console (current website statistics)
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SEO
2. Content marketing
WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING?
a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable,
relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience —
and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.
Based on your keyword strategy, start developing relevant content:
+ Website pages, including product overviews, and product pages
+ Blogs: new products, innovation, seasonality, workers, quality
procedures and certification
+ Social media
+ News articles
Add and update content regularly!
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SEO
3. Search engine friendly URLs
YOUR WEBSITE URLS ARE A FACTOR THAT INFLUENCE YOUR RANKING IN SEARCH ENGINES:
+ Keyword rich URLs help Google determine the content that you offer.
+ Keyword in domain name becomes less important for Google, but it is easy to recognize for
humans.
Example, URL optimized for seaweed:
Example of a bad URL: [Link]
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SEO
4. The power of tags
USE KEYWORDS IN:
+ Title tags (see next slide)
+ Meta description tags (see next slide)
+ Image file names
+ Alt tags, helps show your images in Google Image search
Filename: Organic-jojoba-oil-skin-
[Link]
Alt tag: Premium organic jojoba oil
from Peru. Soothing and hydrating
the skin and reduces fine lines.
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SEO
4. The power of tags
HIGH QUALITY AND CONVERTING TAGS SHOULD BE:
Title tags Meta description tags
Easy and attractive to read A trigger to click: written like an attractive ad
Containing the most important keywords, related to Containing the most important keyword(s), related
the page content to the page content
Max. 55 characters (including spaces and Max. 150 characters (including spaces and
punctuation marks) punctuation marks)
Containing the company name A comprehensive summary of page content
Unique for every page Unique for every page
In the correct language In the correct language
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SEO
5. Google business
Google business is a free business profile on Google
([Link]/business/):
+ Google tries to create business listings on its own
+ Important for distance related mobile searches
+ Complete Google businesses get 7 times more
clicks than those that are incomplete
Make sure to add:
+ Address details
+ Opening hours
+ Contact details: phone, fax, and website
+ Images
Google will send a postcard to the business address to
verify your listing
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SEO
6. XML sitemap
ALWAYS OFFER GOOGLE AN UP-TO-DATE LIST OF YOUR WEBPAGES:
+ Automatically generated by your CMS
+ XML sitemap structure can be found at [Link]
+ Submit your XML sitemap in Google Search Console:
[Link]/search-console/about
TIP: Carry this out in collaboration with your IT-consultant.
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SEO
7. External links and social media
HIGH QUALITY LINKS FROM SUBJECT RELATED EXTERNAL WEBSITES – TO YOUR WEBSITE – HAVE A POSITIVE
INFLUENCE ON WEBSITE RANKING.
Think along the line of:
+ High rated business directories
+ Sector support organizations
+ Trade fairs
+ Sharing your website on social media, also offer sharing
Showing likes, shares and discussions on your website demonstrates importance. Useful tools for
implementing are: [Link], [Link]
TIP: Avoid unrelated external websites linking to your website. Google will see this as noncredible links, which has a
negative impact on your ranking.
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SEO
8. 301 redirect
WHY AND WHEN SHOULD YOU REDIRECT?
+ If you rebrand your website, you could use a 301 to direct traffic from your old site to your new one.
+ Build trust, for example: use 301 redirect to [Link] Show visitors it’s a secure site, since it deals with personal or
financial information.
TIP: Just like in real life: plagiarism is considered as a bad practice. Avoid duplicate content and don’t one-on-one copy
and paste from the internet.
Use a 301-redirect for redirecting pages. For example:
redirecting a non-www to a www: [Link] to [Link] (or the other way
around)
TIP: Carry this out in collaboration with your IT-consultant.
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SEO
9. Speed
TECHNOLOGY GOES FAST WHICH LEADS TO PEOPLE BECOMING MORE AND MORE IMPATIENT.
Conclusion:
+ Website speed matters to your visitors, so it matters to search engines too!
Tips to speed up your website:
+ Reduce image dimensions: do not load an image of 5000px if you only display it as 800px
in width
+ Reduce image file size: compress images before uploading. Use [Link] for png and
jpeg
+ Use quality hosting
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SEO
10. Security
+ Security is very important and creates trust.
+ Make sure user name, passwords and personal information is encrypted.
Solutions:
+ SSL / HTTPS, should be in place
+ Most providers offer free SSL via Let’s Encrypt [Link]
+ Tool for checking status SSL and reasons for unsecure connection while SSL is in place: [Link]
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Monitoring and evaluation
WHY SHOULD YOU MONITOR AND EVALUATE HOW YOUR WEBSITE IS DOING AND HOW YOU RANK ON GOOGLE?
+ To check if your objectives are on track Subject Tools
+ Timely adjust your strategy – if needed Google Analytics
+ It helps identifying what works – and what not [Link]
Ask your customers
TIP: Use tools to help you analyze data. Website Check competitors
Google Search Console
[Link]
[Link]
Google ranking [Link]
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Monitoring and evaluation: Google
Analytics
GOOGLE ANALYTICS ALLOWS YOU TO MEASURE WEBSITE VISITOR STATISTICS.
You can find information about:
+ New vs. returning visitors
+ Location of your visitors
+ Pageviews
+ Visitor flow
+ Bounce rate
+ Duration of session
+ Devices
+ Referrals (e.g. from social media)
TIP: Add a Google Analytics tracking code to your
website in collaboration with your IT-consultant.
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Take aways
FOCUS ON YOUR TARGET GROUP, THE EUROPEAN IMPORTERS:
+ Your website should also be available in English
+ What is most interesting for your potential customers in Europe?
+ What are the most important information?
+ Why should an importer do business with your company?
When writing texts…
+ Stress that you are a reliable business partner.
+ Emphasize the benefits for your customers working with you.
+ But don't promise what you can't keep!
+ Not all corporate information you can provide will be of the same value to an importer.
+ Provide facts and figures in a compact way.
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Take aways and links
GET INSPIRED: SEARCH FOR OTHER COMPANIES FROM YOUR BUSINESS SECTOR AND DISCOVER THEIR WEBSITES.
Whilst browsing through the website, ask yourself:
+ What is the company’s unique value proposition?
+ Can I find any call-to-actions, and are they attractive?
+ Does the website have wow-pictures and videos?
+ Is the website easy to use?
+ What would you do differently?
Great resources:
+ MOZ: [Link]
+ Yoast: [Link]/seo-blog
+ Wordpress: [Link]/themes
+ Wix webdesign: [Link]
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Checklist for your quality control
Before airing the website, check: Prioritized strategy activities, checklist:
Is the spelling correct? Content management plan
Are all core statements presented News and blog schedule
(unique value proposition)? Usability and action funnel check
Is the text set properly? Photo and video production plan
Is the page user-friendly? (Ask a handful Monitor website performance
of people to give you feedback on your SEO check, priority keyword
website) combinations
Are the images and graphics correct and SEO plan
perfectly positioned?
Review content on keywords
Is a legible font size chosen?
Monitor search engine ranking
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This guide was published by:
IPD - Import Promotion Desk
Project Office Bonn
c/o sequa gGmbH
Alexanderstraße 10
D - 53111 Bonn
Germany
T: +49 (0) 228 965 05 890
F: +49 (0) 228 926 37 989
info@[Link]
[Link]
© January 2019
External content adviser: Globally Cool
Disclaimer: Although great care has been taken in preparing this manual, IPD does not guarantee complete accuracy of the information included in this
guide and accepts no responsibility for any consequences of its use.