19 Things Every Consulting Business Website Needs
How can you make a consulting business website that is professional, authentic, and effective?
If you are a consultant or independent expert, you must attract customers to your website. Customers will only visit your website if it has useful and practical things.
A well-designed website is the first component of your business that your customers will see. They will not trust your services if your website loads slowly or doesn’t provide enough information. A low-quality website can be interpreted to mean that your services are also poor. As a result, there are several things that you must include on your website.
We have divided these things into four categories: basic website information, back-end tools, navigation features, and security tools.
Basic Website Information
The most important elements of your consulting business website are your basic information. These are the things that customers must know about your consultancy business. They include:
1. Simple and Memorable URL
When you first design your website, you will want to operationalize it as soon as possible. As a result, you may ignore some critical website information. Successful independent experts choose a precise and memorable URL. You want your customers to immediately recognize your business’s URL when they see it.
Your URL must clearly explain what your business is about. This means that the URL should market your business. It should also be something that your customers can easily type into their browsers.
2. Accurate Business Description
Many people will stumble upon your consulting business website without knowing what it’s about. A well-designed website makes a great first impression and clearly explains its purpose. A person should know what your consultancy service is about within the first minute of visiting your website. Therefore, your homepage must display your vision, mission, and business summary.
3. Call to Action
Attracting visitors to your website is a good thing, but you will only benefit from them if they use your services. After all, that is why you designed the website in the first place. Consequently, you must state what you want visitors to do when they visit your consulting business website. This is why you must create a call to action button or form.
Your call to action will invite visitors to subscribe or buy your services. It should be precise and straight to the point. In addition, your call-to-action must be conspicuous on all your web pages.
4. Contact Details
Legitimate businesses include their phone number, address, and business name on the website. This information will be helpful when people want to know more details about your consultancy service. Contact information also confirms that your business actually exists and has a physical location. The contact information should be on its own page and on the footer section of each page.
5. Biographies and Staff Pictures
Bringing a human touch to your website is also one of the things that can lead to success. People want to know who you are, how you look, and what your beliefs are. They also expect to know your staff members, especially those who they will be talking to. Images of staff members bring a human touch to an internet dominated by automation and void of personal connections. Moreover, pictures inspire confidence and show the authenticity of your business.
6. Logo
Not everybody is good at memorizing company names or URLs. This is where a company logo can be useful. Your company logo should appear at the top of your page, and it should be the first thing that people see when they visit any of your web pages. It should also be memorable and use bright colors for visibility.
Consultant meeting with a client at an office
Back-End Tools
Many of the things on this list help the customer access and use your website, but you also need to manage the website from the back end. These are the things that should be in your control room to help you manage the business better.
7. Content Management System (CMS) Tools
It would be best if you found a way to structure and display the site’s information. This makes it easier to know which content is relevant and which page should be deleted. A content management system or CMS can also be ideal when you delete a page but don’t want to discard its content. In this case, the CMS will archive the information for later use.
There are several CMS tools on the internet. You can select a functional tool and then tailor it to fit your website needs. The chosen CMS should be compatible with WordPress add-ons and plugins.
8. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Features
Search engine optimization (SEO) can bring many guests to your website by pushing your consulting business website to the first page of search engine results. That is why you need tools to optimize your content so that it can attract more visitors.
9. Website Hosting
You need website hosting to store your website’s information and operations. Hosting is usually included in the domain name and website design package. This can happen if you have hired a designer to build your consulting business website.
10. Website Analytics Tools
Any successful website must be continuously improved and redesigned. You can do this if you have up-to-date and accurate data. That is why you must get website analytics tools. These tools will track your movements on your website and provide reports. For instance, you may have to change the content on a page that isn’t attracting many visitors.
11. Description Tools
The process of changing titles and meta descriptions on your website should be simple and quick. That is why you need description tools to simplify the updating process. You will also need to update your consulting business website on a regular basis to meet changing SEO needs.
User Navigation Tools
There should be features on your website to help users navigate your website.
12. Navigation Bar
A navigation bar is a tool that lists the various pages on your website. It also shows users how they can access these pages from where they currently are. As a result, users can easily move from the blog page to the product page without wasting time. They can also research information on your website in a simple manner.
13. Links
Your interaction with website visitors shouldn’t end at the homepage. Instead, website visitors should check out other pages for more information. Consequently, there should be internal links on your homepage and within your blog posts.
If you talk about a product on a blog post, there should be an internal link in the blog post that leads to the product’s page. Using internal links on your consultancy page is a good way to keep guests on your website for a longer period. The longer they stay on your website, the more likely they are going to use your services and become regular customers.
14. Chatbot
People will be visiting your website at any time of the day or night. Since you can’t have 24/7 human support, you have to implement a chatbot. The software will answer common website visitor questions and help them navigate the website. For instance, chatbots can direct visitors to the contact us page.
15. Subscription Tools
If you have good content on your consulting business website, many of your visitors will want to get regular updates. Subscription tools help visitors subscribe to your newsletter or go to your homepage. The subscription tools can be located at the bottom of the page or appear as pop-ups on every page. The subscription tools should also include your email and contact details.
Security Tools
Securing your website is extremely important, especially because cybersecurity attacks have increased. If you lose access to your website, your reputation will be damaged, and it will be difficult to regain control. Here are some of the main security tools that you must have on your website.
16. SSL
Your website must have SSL certificates to assure visitors that they are browsing on a safe website. You will need to register some data files and confirm their association with your domain. Once the SSL certificate has become active, it will appear on your URL. In fact, Google has started to avoid websites without SSL certification.
17. Captcha
Hackers usually use bots to access and test your website’s security features. You can stop this by introducing captcha verifications.
18. Backups
You may do everything to protect your website from being hacked, but sometimes this may not be possible. When hackers compromise your business, you can get back to business quickly if you have backed up your data. Consequently, automatic data backup tools must be part of your website. There are many backup tools on the internet that you can use.
19. Password Control
Important sections of your website should not be available to everybody. That is because the data on these pages is sensitive and directly relates to business operations. Therefore, you must introduce password access to some of your pages. For instance, current customers will use passwords to access certain sections of your website.
Bottom Line
Your consultancy business requires a functional and well-designed website. This website needs several tools to attract and convert leads. The tools we have listed above are a good starting point for any consultant or independent expert who wants to improve their consulting business website. You can also contact us for more information.
