By A company website/company homepage is more than just your digital figurehead. A successful company website generates leads (contact inquiries), new customers and applicants for job advertisements.
But what should you pay attention to when creating a successful company website and what is really important if the company homepage is supposed to be more than just a digital business card?
We clarify and show 15 clear features of a successful and sustainably effective company website that has the potential to completely digitize and automate your sales.
Why Do I Need A Company Website?
Believe it or not, there are still companies today that seriously doubt the need for a company website.
During our daily Google searches, we repeatedly come across companies, even corporations or large medium-sized companies, who have felt that their company homepage has not been maintaining their company website since the late 1990s.
But the potential is generously wasted here because a successful company website fulfils the following functions:
- A company website communicates your expertise and creates trust.
- An (SEO) optimized website is an effective marketing machine and regularly generates valuable inquiries.
- Your company website is often the first point of contact for interested applicants and can convince new talents of your company.
- The company website is often the first touchpoint with your company and leaves an important first impression.
- Your company homepage increases your reach, regardless of location and opening times.
- A company homepage is a cornerstone for digital brand building.
Let’s go straight to the most common mistake we see when building corporate websites. Highly motivated and convinced entrepreneurs simply create their company website themselves.
How hard can that be?
Seriously. Would you like your company homepage to become the sales representative of the month, bring you new customers and make your company as attractive as possible to potential applicants?
In that case, have your website created by professionals who have experience and expertise in the field of website design.
Even if you have already created a website privately and your friends and acquaintances actually found it very good – make a smart business decision and outsource the website creation to professionals.
Our website team consists of several backend and frontend developers as well as web and UX designers. Professional and sustainable websites can only be created with such an expert team that covers all of these competencies.
Successful Company Homepage: 15 Features And Tips
Now let’s get to the heart of this post. What makes a good company website? We have compiled the most important factors and characteristics that you can use to check whether your company website still complies with the latest standards.
For a really successful and effective company website, all of the criteria mentioned should be met so that
- Potential new customers perceive you professionally
- Potential new employees want to apply to you
- You regularly generate inquiries through your website
- You can still present a contemporary website today, tomorrow and five years from now
Here we go!
1. HTTPS
Let’s start with security. An SSL certificate encrypts communication between the server and browser and enables secure surfing on your company website.
If an SSL certificate is available, “HTTPS” will appear in front of your domain. If there is no SSL certificate, the “S” is missing and the browser indicates that the connection is not secure.
Unfortunately, this banality is still often neglected, so that not infrequently even large companies have an unsafe website, which does not exactly inspire trust.
In addition, “HTTPS” is an official Google ranking factor, which is why you should make sure that your website has a secure connection.
2. Professional Web Design
Web design is a topic in itself. Professional web design leaves a professional impression on everyone who comes across your website and should therefore be chosen carefully.
When designing your website, you should definitely pay attention to the current web design trends so that your company is perceived as contemporary and modern.
Loud colours, minimalism, mobile-first and dark fashion are just some of the current trends.
Tip from Three Windows
Above all, web design is important for the UX (user experience) and thus has a significant influence on how the user experience looks on your website. A positive user experience and good user signals ensure more interaction and increase the conversion rate.
3. Mobile Responsive
Mobile-first! Most website visitors today come to your company website via their smartphone. That this is accordingly mobile responsive has long been a matter of course. So if you still have a company homepage that cannot be displayed on mobile devices without the annoyance of zooming and swiping, you should have it recreated immediately. 
4. Professional CMS
Yes, with a simple website builder, company websites can be created in a short time, even without prior knowledge. The modular websites are mostly very limited in their technical possibilities, are very “code-heavy” to the detriment of loading times and cannot keep up with a professional CMS, for example, WordPress. The CMS selection should therefore not be chosen according to your creative skills, but according to the goals you are pursuing with your company website.
5. Search Engine Optimization
What good is the most beautiful company website if it is not visible on Google? Search engine optimization (SEO) should be taken into account when designing a new company website. So that your company website can be found in search engines, the following aspects should be considered:
- Onpage SEO (search engine optimized content, optimized internal links, etc.)
- Offpage SEO ( backlinks from other relevant websites)
- Technical SEO (optimized permalink structure, fast loading times, good crawlability, etc.)
6. Quality Content
How often do we see that a lot of money is invested in a website relaunch, but the content is neglected? Service descriptions of 100 words are not only a thorn in the side of Google but also of your users. Your company website should therefore be enriched with high-quality content in order to leave lasting impressions.
Tip from Three Windows
Describe your products and services, speak the language of your target group, use emotions and storytelling and bring your company website to life with great content.
7. Personal Insights
The faces behind the company can be seen on a good company website. To integrate a team page on your company website and rely on real photos of your company instead of impersonal stock photos. Personal insights and people’s faces inspire trust and users are more likely to interact with your website and send a contact request.
8. Testimonials
Testimonials are statements from people who speak out in favour of your product or service. These advertising messages are particularly effective because of their credibility and should therefore find a place on your company website. 
9. Trust Signals
As mentioned in the testimonials, “trust” plays an immensely important role in a successful company website.
By placing so-called trust signals, you can strengthen the trust of your users in your company.
Possible trust signals are, for example:
- Certificates and memberships in associations
- Seal of approval (TÜV, Trusted Shops etc.)
- Listings of well-known customers
- Customer numbers
- Tested payment security (for online shops)
10. FAQ
An FAQ is a must-have for every successful company website. By answering frequent questions you can, on the one hand, satisfy your customers and on the other hand drive your search engine optimization with the additional content.
An FAQ also relieves support, saves you calls and questions about your offer and creates trust through transparency.
11. Blog/Magazine
A corporate blog is an excellent marketing asset that can increase your website traffic, increase your reach, and accentuate your expert reputation.
If the blog on your company website follows a well-thought-out SEO and content marketing strategy, you can build an effective sales funnel through rankings for the company-relevant top of the funnel keywords and thereby increase your sales in a targeted manner.
Whether B2C or B2B – a blog strategy is what makes a good company website really successful and can maximize your visibility in search engines and automate your sales.
12. Newsletter Function
Email Marketing Is Dead? Not at all. Email marketing is still a highly efficient marketing channel and a long list of newsletter subscribers is worth its weight in gold.
Therefore, integrate a newsletter function on your company website and encourage users to subscribe to your newsletter. Freebies, for example in the form of e-books, checklists or white papers, can help increase your number of subscribers.
Tip from Three Windows
Even if you are still at the very beginning, use a professional newsletter tool to automate processes. This not only saves you a lot of time but also reduces the likelihood of violating the GDPR, as the sending of promotional emails is strictly regulated by the Telemedia Act (TMG), the Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
13. Social Media Links
Do you regularly use social media channels with high-quality content? Link your channels on your company website to encourage your users to interact with your website and social media channels.
If you publish high-quality content, for example on your corporate blog, you can also use share buttons to increase the reach of your content and thus your visibility.
14. Fast Loading Times
Slow loading times annoy your users and will noticeably worsen the user experience. Fast loading times are also important for Google and represent a confirmed ranking factor.
Common causes of poor loading times are:
- Javascript and CSS files that are not minimized
- Not optimized HTML
- Inappropriately sized image and video files
Tip from Three Windows
With the PageSpeed Insights Tool from Google, you can find out within a few seconds how well your company website is set up in terms of loading times and receive recommendations on what you should urgently improve.
15. GDPR Compliance
Last but not least, your company website should of course also be GDPR-compliant. The data protection guidelines for websites have now been tightened to such an extent that very few company websites are 100% secure against expensive warnings.
Cookie banners, privacy policy, imprint, copyright – there are many data protection stumbling blocks that can ultimately be very expensive for you. Therefore, have your business website checked by a lawyer and designed so that it is safe from warnings.
Company Website Conclusion
The demands on a good business website are high and there are countless things that you should consider in order to have a visible, professional and visually convincing website.
Think twice about whether you really want to create your business website yourself, or whether you would rather leave this asset of your business in the hands of experts in order to transform your firm homepage from a digital business card into a high-performance sales funnel.
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