How to scale your website as your company grows

Whether you’re in the industry of digital tech or not, your website is a crucial information platform for attracting new customers, establishing a bond with them, and converting them from interested parties into frequent clients. As such, you don’t want to allow your digital presence to fall by the wayside; you want to promote your professional ability and introduce your audience to your employees and services. 

Here are just some of the ways you can scale your website as your company grows. 

Consider the needs of your growing audience 

If you’re extending your products and offers into new categories, markets or industries, you’ll need your website to communicate with a different workforce, as well as the professionals associated with you already. 

You should consider how to adapt your existing services so that they can also suit the needs of your growing audience – do you need to add features, convey other benefits, introduce new sub-offers or make small tweaks to better cater for them? For instance, if your business launches weekly webinars that go out live, and now you’re taking your business global, you should record the sessions so viewers can access them around the world, at an hour that suits their timezone. 

If you are going global, another point to consider is the native language of new markets. Generally speaking, if you’re an English-speaking business and they’re partnering with you, they’ll be able to understand your website. However, if there are any elements in the site which use more sophisticated, technical or very formal language, for example, terms and conditions, contracts of business, etc., you should consider offering a translated version of this content. The more you can show you understand the needs of your growing audience, the more they will respect you. 

By expanding the reach of your business, you’ll likely have online customers searching for you from new points of interest. Perhaps you previously dealt solely with manufacturing, and now you’re looking for logistics, the keywords that this new audience will use to search the internet for you will be different to the words used by your established client base. As such, you should look for a web design agency who truly understand how SEO content works, such as WSI Proven Results so they can make sure any potential clients can find you quickly and easily. 

Add new information, but avoid over cluttering 

As you grow, the temptation will be to display as much information as you can about the work streams you’re innovating within. However, too much information can be a distraction; taking away from the key details you’d want website visitors to understand about your brand. 

The rule to follow is, "Keep it simple." Look for ways to use imagery and iconography to communicate the new work you’re doing, rather than relying on written information to tell the story. 

Similarly, you may want to reassess the case studies or testimonials you host on your website. You should only require a select number of examples to showcase your best work. Indeed, the more case studies you list doesn’t necessarily mean the more clients will believe in your ability. Try to choose one or two testimonials to reflect each category or industry you work within, and be confident that these alone will sell your services. 

Introduce your new offices 

If prospective clients can see that you’re doing well, and therefore have a need to hire new staff members and open new offices, this suggests you’ll be a strong partner to work with. 

You can use a blog feature on your website to keep your visitors abreast with news such as office openings. Also, make sure you list details of all your addresses in the ‘contact’ page on your site; it will be reassuring for future clients to know you’ve got a physical presence near to them. 

If you already have a ‘meet the team’ section of your website, then adding new faces to this can certainly help clients connect with your new recruits. However, as with over cluttering the rest of the website, you should use this feature judiciously. Having a team photo, or individual photos, of up to 20-30 staff members and a little personal detail on each of them can add to the human quality of your business. However, displaying numerous names and faces may indeed have the opposite effect! If you’re growing at such a pace that you’ve gone from being a SME to having staff numbers in the hundreds, perhaps you should now only display key members of the team, such as MDs, CEOs, and Directors. 

Invest in more storage and bandwidth hosting 

The last thing you want is for your new and improved website to crash, as it can’t handle the pressure of increased traffic. 

To avoid this, you should upgrade your current hosting so that it can take on the extra data of new web pages and added content. As your business grows, surely so will your client numbers, so you’ll need a site that can support a high number of visitors in a short space of time – very few people will have the patience to refresh a website until it loads effectively. 

In conclusion 

As your company expands to take on new ventures and new clients, you’ll want an improved website to support you in this endeavor. Consider all the ways you may need to tweak, update and adapt your website to suit your growing audience. Ensure you’re giving credit to the work you do, and the fine people you employ. Crucially, invest enough in your hosting so that your website can accommodate these changes. 

After all, in this day and age, your website is one of the most crucial aspects of your marketing campaign and can be a hotbed for further business development.