Every business needs a digital presence (read: website, social media pages) , but that’s not news to you. What may be news to you though are the three key objectives that your website needs to meet when your visitors arrive.

1. Professional Image: 15 years ago qualifies as “back in the day” in internet years. You may recall that any website 15 years ago was acceptable, and there were some pretty awful ones. Today that’s definitely no longer the case. Your visitors will infer many things about your business from the look and feel of your website. Their capacity to “know, like and trust you” starts with how professional, credible and authoritative your site looks. Today’s web visitor assumes that shoddy website = shoddy business, and you don’t want to provide that perception.

2. Unique Selling Proposition: Whatever you sell or service, you’ve got competition. Which leaves your customer with the question “which business should I pick?” Assuming they don’t have some other influencer affecting their decision such as a personal referral, they will tend to look for the best fit for their exact needs.

You can’t be all things to all people, but you can be very unique and specific in something that you do. That is your unique selling proposition. Whether it’s home delivery, 24 hour customer service, targeting a specific demographic (seniors, military, newly married, etc), the more specific your selling proposition is, the more likely you’ll stand out to a given segment of your audience. As Seth Godin observed in “Purple Cow”, you need to be remarkable and one way to be remarkable is to make your offer very unique and specific.

3. Clear Call To Action: The success rate of your web presence as a lead generator improves greatly for websites which include a call to action. Whether it’s a request to call for a free quote, download a free report or click a specific link or button to move from the landing page to a desired information page, you should want your visitor to take some “next” action. We tend to do what we’re asked or told, so when someone lands on your webpage be sure to tell them what action you want them to take, and make it easy for them to follow that course.