When talking about good websites, it is the whole thing that counts. When purchasing websites, it is important to understand how many different elements the website consists of and what the made decisions have an impact on. The functionality of websites can be cut into several different areas.
In this blog post, I will review what those areas are and how we implement the website according to the MRACE model.
Check out an example on the website that we have implemented
Maansiirto Harry Mäkelä received brand-appropriate and distinctive websites.
Design your layout and user experience
The first thing a visitor sees on a website is the layout of the website, i.e. what the site looks like. It is important that you get a professional view of the website at first glance, as the visitor subconsciously connects the quality of your business and the services you provide to your website. In many cases, people’s first contact with the company is via websites, so it is important to make a good first impression.
Designing the layout UI means designing everything that is visible to the user of the website. User interface design selects the font colors and other visual elements that are used on the website.
The usability of a website and user purchase paths are at least as important as a great look.
However, just a nice layout is not enough, and it can even be said that if a site is designed with just the layout above, it can even be a disadvantage. Website availability and user purchase paths are at least as important as a great layout. UX design which means how easy it is to use a website from finding the desired product to purchasing.
Read more: What is a digital brand strategy?
The MRACE® model – our way of thinking about good websites
MRACE ® is a marketing model that we use to lead the marketing of our client companies. The MRACE model also serves as a basis for designing websites and illustrating the different stages of the purchase path. Good websites should be designed to include or take into account content for visitors at every stage of the MRACE funnel.
REACH
No matter how good your website is, it does not matter if no one can find your website.
The top stage of the MRACE funnel is Reach. Reach is intended to get relevant visitors to your website. For example, a user might search a search engine for information about a service in your company. What do you need to do to get this user to your website? You should write sales content on your website that responds to these searches and issues made by your potential customers.
The best way to map the most important keywords your site should use is to do keyword research . Keyword research helps you understand what kind of things your customers are looking for online. With keyword research, you can anticipate market developments ahead of your competitors and respond to the people’s needs by creating services or products for which your customers are looking for a solution from search engines.
In other words, keyword research serves as a basis for designing the structure of your website and content production. It is advisable to always carry out a keyword research before starting a website renewal project.
ACT
The next step is Act. At this point, we turn the flow of visitors into leads by creating content that supports the purchase process for the buyers. Before making a purchase decision, customers perform independent information retrieval. That is why we create purchase paths on your site that are built around their purchasing process completely. This allows us to remove the buying barriers and steer potential customers towards the desired measure, in which case we will generate leads.
Concrete measures for the Act phase on the website include visiting landing pages, downloading a guide, or watching videos.
CONVERT
Step 3, Convert, supports the sales process and the sale of leads across channels, whether the sales process takes a day or a year.
Users in the Convert phase are ready to make a purchase or make another conversion on the site. The website guides the user at this point toward conversion, removes purchase barriers, and makes it as easy as possible for the user to buy. For example, the content has answered questions that are questionable to the users at this stage, and the online store product can easily be added to the shopping cart and can be purchased effortlessly without registering or filling in additional fields.
ENGAGE
In the Engage phase, we engage customers with your company and help them become regular customers as well as your references. At this point, we engage our effortlessly acquired customers with timely marketing automation, content marketing that serves your customers, and social media sales pipelines.
The more customers we can translate into regular customers, the more resources we can put into new customer acquisition, which will create a competitive advantage for you at the Reach phase.
MEASURE
In order to make data-based decisions, you must have the first data on which decisions are made. The final stage of the MRACE model is Measure, which actually frames the entire digital marketing.
We measure everything so that we can develop marketing with the right measures at the right time. For each step and channel, we set up our own KPI’s, the implementation of which we monitor through the MRACE dashboard. The dashboard controls the use of resources based on data, allowing us to identify and strengthen the weakest links in your marketing. In this way, marketing is constantly evolving and is not a separate measure.
Content is part of a good website
As we know, high-quality website content is the seller on your website, which represents your business and brings leads 24/7. On the other hand, bad content does not produce anything for your business.
Search engines appreciate long and relevant content, so your website will rise to a higher ranking on Google if you invest in content creation and its quality.
As a rule of thumb, at least 300-500 words of content should be written for each product and service. When your site is ranked higher, it collects more traffic.
More traffic means you get more leads. Both websites and their content should be fixed at once and invested in the initial costs, as the actual price of the website is not solely determined by the price of the website project.
The final price is determined throughout the site’s lifecycle, so it is worth thinking of the website as a longer-term investment. In general, saving on construction costs is a sure way to torpedo future profits.
Technical functionality and speed
The functionality of the site may sound obvious, but it is an important part of the overall website. You will lose a lot of valuable traffic, for example, if your website loads slowly.
Google values fast websites and uses the website’s speed as one of the factors in determining search rankings. On the other hand, people are also impatient and cannot wait for a slow website to load. The download speed of the website is influenced by many factors. These include image sizes, the server and technology used.
Read also: Five reasons why your website is slow
Upgradeability and further development
Websites should almost always be built on top of some content management software (CMS). You should also choose an open source CMS so that you do not lock yourself into a single actor, allowing you to customize your site yourself.
WordPress is the most popular content management software in the world, and we use it for our website projects. WordPress makes it easy to update your website and edit the content.
Summary
When redesigning a website, the whole is decisive. The MRACE funnel model helps to understand users at different stages of the purchase and what should be on the website for them. You should start your website project with keyword research to find out what people are searching for online.
Based on the keyword research, you can select the keywords around which your website will be structured. The design, content, and technical implementation of the layout of the website are the cornerstones around which the site is built.
For further development, it is important that it is moderately easy to make changes to the site and that everything that happens on the website is measured so that you can make data-based decisions.
Want to know how we implement websites? Read more about our website service.