Websites have become essential for all types and sizes of businesses in Dubai, UAE. No matter if you are a small local store or a huge multinational enterprise, these days each business should have a website, not only businesses, but public offices and even governments all around the world have their websites. Technology is transforming and rapidly advancing. The things considered very high-tech in the past few years are now obsolete. The same is the case with the websites and web designs, the web designs that were performing very well around two or three years ago are no longer in the trend in 2021. People do not like them anymore and they are not been able to compete with modern-day web designs. Actually, the websites are all about the user experience and how users perceive them. Nowadays there are certain tools which can help ordinary user to make websites within a few simple steps, it is more like of installing an application in your laptop, all you need is to check a few checkboxes and click next and finish, and you have an up and running website. However, there is a big difference between having just a website and having a website that can outperform your competition and it can provide you a strong foundation for your digital marketing efforts to help you generate online leads and revenue.
Corporate websites are slightly different than other websites. Each business or enterprise has a very specific goal or target to achieve with their website. It means your website should also have to be aligned with your marketing goals and business objectives. A corporate website helps companies and businesses to build a brand identity in the online world. It is not just an online profile, but it is a very powerful marketing tool capable of making a huge difference in any business’s success. In modern societies such as Dubai and other emirates of UAE, where people have access to high-speed internet and literally everyone owns a smartphone or a laptop or in fact both in most of the cases, digital and online information are the most influential factor in a purchase decision in the year 2021. It is equally important for both B2B (business to business) and B2C (business to consumer) types of companies and corporations. Everyone needs a corporate website and everyone is trying to make it perfect. Although I believe there is no such thing as a “Perfect Corporate Website” as we always have some room for more optimization. So, I think it is always great to have a maximum optimized corporate website for your business or enterprise if you are operating in Dubai, UAE. In addition, businesses can outsource their websites to leading web design companies in Dubai such as RSI Concepts to keep them up-to-date all the time.
If you will follow the following guidelines and standards you can achieve the maximum level of effectiveness and optimization:
How to Design the Homepage of a Corporate Website?
There is a popular saying “You will never get a second chance to make a first impression!” The homepage of any corporate website is the most viewed page and it is the very first impression of the brand or business on a huge portion of its total visitors. The homepage of a corporate website must have to very effective in conveying the brand’s vision, mission, objectives, products, and services. It has to tell the visitor how you can help them and why you are different from others and it has to say that message very loud. The most important method to convey such messages is ‘headings’ and ‘taglines’. Make sure your tagline, headings, and sub-headings are saying what a visitor or prospect wants to hear. Think from the user’s point of view, think about what will convince you to make a decision if you were the visitor. Prepare the taglines, headings, and sub-headings to compel the visitor to convert.
The most common mistake businesses do is to put a lot of information about their company on their homepage, for that the about us page is the best and only option. The homepage is not to provide your history and mission statement. Yes, a short intro is nice, but not more than a few lines. In fact, you should focus on the customer journey, how you will take your customers from an unconvinced state to a convinced state, and where you should place your CTA (call to action). Pay attention to the images, graphics, and multimedia content too. These are the things that could help you score more online conversions and leads. The most important thing is that you show some core benefits of your products and services, how is your brand different than the others, and such material will help you convert more. The homepage should be able to offer a great user experience. These days with the help of the latest website programming tools and software a lot many interactive features can be added to the website to increase visitor’s engagement.
How to Design Internal Pages of a Corporate Website?
The homepage is the trickiest part of a corporate website to design. Once it is designed the inner pages will follow the same theme. Although the content and other design elements are different, the main structure and the theme of a corporate website are dictated by its homepage. For the inner pages, the important thing is that you should have a dedicated page for each set of information. For example, if you are offering a multitude of products and/or services, each should have a dedicated page. Each page that is designed for a product or service should have a great customer journey, the CTA, the content, the multimedia, and in some cases the secondary CTA should be placed strategically. The difference between primary CTA and secondary CTA is that the primary CTA is the actual purchase, or the conversion, like ‘request for quote’ or ‘checkout’ whereas the secondary CTA is not an actual conversion but just like a call back request or a free consultation or something. The purpose of secondary conversion is to keep the possibility open for a conversion. It is really helpful. Especially in B2B (business to business) structure, the secondary CTA is very important and effective.
Here is a list of some important internal pages that your corporate website design should have:
- About
- Products & Services
- Portfolio and Work Samples (if applicable)
- Testimonials & Customer Reviews
- Contact
- News & Press Releases
- FAQs
- Privacy Policy
- Terms & Conditions or Terms of Use
- Blog
- Page Not Found or 404
- Sitemap
These are the basic internal pages a corporate or business web design must-have. Obviously, the content and design of all those pages are depending upon your business type but these all are very important pages.
What are the Basic Design Elements of a Corporate Website Design?
The only objective of a corporate website is to ensure a great online presence. The online and digital world is rapidly expanding and overtaking each and every aspect of our personal and professional life. The corporate websites are not only your online business profile, in fact, but it is also a new brand identity. The online brand identity has already consumed the overall brand identity. The digital and online domain provides businesses a chance to reach out to the furthest corners of their territories without any additional cost or opening branches there, in fact, businesses use online domains to expand their territories.
For example, think of Amazon, or Ali Express or Etsy, or any such giant. The first thing anyone can think of that they all are online marketplaces, but all of them were regional at first, then become global, and now even beyond. How in such a short time corporations have achieved this? With the help of their websites! You must be saying that you are selling lubes and oils or maybe groceries, or maybe you are selling IT services, or office stationery what do you have to do with Amazon or Ali Express! Right? But think critically and think again, what is stopping you to expand your territory? Is it logistics, or is its a limitation of your staff or a limited budget? What else? It is your website and your online, we have tons of examples of when a small startup went viral over the internet, over the night it cough the eye of big investors, people start investing in those corporations and enterprises immediately. All because they went viral, how? Over the online mediums! This is how powerful your website and online brand identity could be.
The key component of a brand identity is always its uniqueness. However, here are a few elements that are relevant to user experience which will help a corporate website to stand out:
1. Header
The header of a website should have a brand logo, some basic contact details, important links, and a menu of the website. Do not make it too big, and do not make it too small, keep it medium. The header is global and is repeated on all pages including the homepage and inner pages.
2. Header Image or Slider
Most of the time corporate web designs have a dynamic header with multiple images in a slider or an attractive video. A static image is a good choice for a real estate or tour operator, multiple images are great for everyone else. Use big images, with taglines and sub-headings. It is only dedicated to homepages. Apart from the homepage all other pages don’t have header images or sliders, some web designs do have small headers or a very short elongated image but not much.
3. Main Body
This is where you can utilize the power of your web design. Each page could have a different body design given that the main theme of the homepage is followed. Some websites do have some interactive applications or forms or any such things, all can be added as per the need of the page and it purpose.
4. Footer
Footer is the lowest section of the web design. It is global and is repeated on all pages including homepage and inner pages. The footer must contain useful links, contact details, and disclaimers, etc. These days corporate web designs are having a huge footer. I don’t mind the idea, but I think the footer must not exceed half of the screen.
5. Color Scheme
The color scheme is extremely important. It hugely impacts the user experience of a corporate website. The very first thing that will be absorbed by the visitor would be the color pallets and fonts of the web design. Studies showed that it takes only 50 Milliseconds to make an impression about the website and consequently about the brand. When choosing a color scheme you should pay attention to:
- Your logo’s colors
- Industry Trends (look what others are doing)
- Demography of your audience
The demography of the audience is extremely important, there are certain colors very popular among certain industries for example the accountant and lawyer mostly use blue and green dominant color scheme on their websites. The website posting guides and tutorials or selling for newborn babies are mostly choosing light blue, pink, and yellow color schemes and so on.
It is extremely important that you choose the appropriate color scheme for your corporate web design.
6. Typography and Font Style
The typography and font styles are also the same as the color scheme. Hence same rules and standards can be followed for them as well. The main objective should always remain to ensure the highest readability and these days also responsiveness. The smartphone and responsive experience are extremely important. The fonts and font styles should be carefully selected for each experience. The industry standard is that the body text or paragraph fonts should be of at least 16 pixels, not less than that. Another very important thing is to maintain a reasonable contrast between the text color and the background. If the information is not readable, or barely readable, the visitor will immediately leave the web page.
7. Navigation and Menu
The overall navigation structure and the menu of a corporate website is very important. It is an unsaid rule in the web designing industry that every content should be available within 1 to 3 clicks maximum, any content that lies deeper than that might not be visible for almost 80% of the visitors. Generally, people don’t bother to go inside the nested menus any deeper than the 3 clicks. If anything is deeper than that it will damage the user experience.
8. Responsiveness
These days in Dubai and other emirates of UAE people often tend to search from their mobile devices and smartphones. Mobile purchases and mobile searches have already surpassed the traditional computers and laptops a few years ago. It is extremely important that you maintain the same user experience on the smartphone and mobile devices as well for your corporate website. The responsive web design automatically renders itself as per the screen size and the platform it is being accessed from. Hence it keeps the same user experience on all screen sizes, smartphones, browsers, and platforms such as Windows and MAC or iPads. This is very important for a corporate website to have the responsiveness and cross-platform compatibility.
How the Content of a Corporate Website should be Prepared?
The first clue lies in the name ‘corporate website’. Since it is a business website so a professional language and tone should be maintained for the textual content. All the pages should have their own respective headings and sub-headings. The homepage should clearly enlist all or just the major product and services along with a short company bio or vision. The content should be written in plain and simple language. The visitors and customers who are landing on your website are all seeking some sort of information, and in the case of a website in fact any website, the visitors want to quickly get to that information, else they will simply leave and start searching for another website. Your design should be able to highlight the basic core of the information, highlights, taglines, headings and even bold text style all are very helpful in highlighting the important stuff.
Another most important thing is that the visitor intentionally or unintentionally looks for the markers and indicators of trust. For example, if your website is enlisting your well-known business partners in a prominent place that would be very comforting for the visitors. Testimonials and customer reviews are a great technique to build trust among your visitors. It is extremely important that your entire website provides hundred percent correct information and data. False information or false claims will completely ruin your brand reputation. Focus on the content of the internal pages as well such as About, Contact, Products & Services pages, etc.
How to design Multilingual Corporate Websites?
As most of the corporate and business entities in the UAE provide multilingual user interfaces for their websites. It is important to have one. Mostly English and Arabic are very common in the corporate websites in Dubai and other emirates of UAE. As we all know the Arabic starts from the right-hand side so it is important that your entire website adopt the language accurately. There has to be no chinks untranslated, even the text on the images and infographics should also be translated respectively. Either your website should have a default language let say English and then the language selector allows the visitor to convert the language or you can ask them at the very time they landed on your website to choose the language of their preference and then let them reach to your website. Both are equally popular but I believe the first method is fine. The language selectors should be placed in a prominent and easy-to-access place. Auto-detect language is much better if done properly. In the case of auto-detect, the website is programmed in a way that before loading it detects the default language of the browser and loads the content for that language if it is available.
One thing that can completely ruin your visitor’s multilingual experience is the auto-translation using any third-party service or API. Never do that. Some web designers prefer to use flags instead of language, which is not a good practice, as flags only represent countries and not the language. A single country can have multiple official languages and a single language could be the official language of multiple countries as well. It is better to use language names or initials. Take care of the responsive versions of the pages as well, because switching language could affect the appearances of different sections. It is always wise to use separate CSS for separate languages.
Why should I do SEO of my Corporate Website?
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is referring to the methods and activities to improve your corporate website’s ranks on the search result page. The search engine result page or commonly known as SERP is the search result that you see when you type any query in Google or any other search engine. It is a great source of free organic traffic and people tend to trust the websites more who appear in the top results when they search for a query. There are two completely different types of SEO which are on-page SEO and off-page SEO. The on-page SEO is totally about website design and development. The off-page SEO is about the backlinks, social endorsements, and other online aspects. When designing a corporate website it is crucial to understand the importance of SEO and to follow the guidelines from popular search engines such as Google. SEO in itself is a big topic and if you made it this far then I bet you don’t want to read another twenty paragraphs. Anyways, the point here is to let the readers know that SEO is very crucial for their future online activities, and while designing and developing a corporate website, all the basic guidelines should be followed.
Conclusion
A corporate website is not like any other ordinary website. In fact, it is the foundation of your brand identity. The influence of online and digital information is huge in general. If you are living in the year 2021 and you are residing in a modern society like Dubai, UAE you can easily notice the impact of online and digitalization on your both personal and professional life. It is extremely important to have a great corporate website to outperform your competition. There are so many things that can improve your visitors’ and customers’ online user experience but there are certain very important guidelines and rules that if followed properly can ensure success.
The most important thing is that the color scheme, fonts, multimedia content, and textual content all should be prepared with a goal of converting the prospect to the lead or sale. The taglines, heading, and highlights should be short, and eye-catchy. The responsiveness and multi-lingual features are also very important. Especially in UAE multilingual websites do better than single language websites. Always consider the demographics and other details of your targeted audience. Pay more attention to CTA and build a customer journey with step-by-step information leading to CTA. Design all-important internal pages and separately and follow a single theme throughout.
By following these basic rules and guidelines and with a proper plan you can make a remarkable corporate website that could boost your online marketing as well as help your business in building a great positive brand identity. Brand identity is crucial for online conversions and revenue generation. It is always wise to acquire a professional. RSI Concepts is a professional web design agency in Dubai having more than a decade long experience. If you need any help with your corporate web design, online branding, or digital marketing, feel free to reach us out through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will revert back to you. Don’t forget to share this blog with your friends and colleagues.
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