3 Website Features That Can Make or Break Your Inbound Strategy

Quick -- Cake or ice cream? Salsa or queso?

Life is full of Sophie’s choices and, as a holistic methodology, so is Inbound Marketing.

When it comes to implementing an Inbound Marketing strategy, it can be difficult (and frankly, ill-advised) to pick and choose tactics that you’d like to use for your brand. From blogging and SEO to social media, the pieces of Inbound are so intertwined and crucial in their own right, picking just one or two to focus on can ultimately leave the big picture, and journey to the close, incomplete.

But unfortunately, sometimes, you have no choice. Perhaps your organization doesn’t have the budget or you’re running short on time.

Whatever the reason may be, occasionally, you need to prioritize your initiatives and pick one over the other. As the hub of most Inbound activity, this often starts with your website.

With this idea in mind, I went to my IMPACT colleagues and asked them, in dire times, “what would you say is the most important page/part of any Inbound website?”

Here’s what they had to say:

The User Journey

“Without an optimized user journey that’s well thought out, and vetted, your users won’t have a clear direction once landing on your site. No matter what page they arrive on they should be able to find their path within 30 seconds. If you fail that test you’re failing your users.

It’s not an easy thing to accomplish, but using the right testing and tracking (HotJar, I’m looking at you), you can iteratively improve your site and create an amazing user journey.” - Vin Gaeta, Tech Supervisor

The Homepage

“To me, the homepage is the most important page of any website (inbound focused or not). A homepage is the first and sometimes the only impression a company will have on a potential customer.

Looking at this from past experiences, I rarely will continue through to other pages on a site if the homepage 1. doesn't look good, 2. doesn't function well, or 3. doesn't give me any hint as to what they do. Any, or all, of those things will cause me to immediately leave the site and visit a competitor.” - Amanda LeClair, Client Resource Manager

“The homepage. It’s your website’s first impression, and we all know how quickly first impressions are made, and how long they last. If a homepage doesn’t load properly or is clunky for some reason, I’m going to close the site and find something better. If I’m interrupted from achieving my goal for navigating to the homepage, I’m going to bounce. Want to make a great homepage that draws visitors in? Find out what they immediately want from your website, and make it easy for them to find.” - Derrick Weiss, Account Executive

Content

“Content for sure. We’ve all heard it a million times; “Content is King” and people aren’t wrong when they say it. Content is what we use to create emotional connections with our prospects, it's what we use to remove friction on landing pages, and solve people’s problems. A website can have a gorgeous design, but isn’t effective without strong content alongside it. It’s the backbone of every site and strategy.” - Joe Rinaldi, Creative Lead