Five foundations for a corporate website that works

A corporate website works when it supports understanding and decision-making. This is rarely a matter of looks. It is a site built as one organised whole and not as a row of separate pages, with wording that explains things clearly and guidance for anyone comparing options.

Notice that this definition says nothing about traffic or appearance. A site can have many visitors, but its value is judged by what they understand. The signs of a site that works are understanding, clear wording, services that are easy to assess, and trust.

Behind it all is a simple idea: a website is not advertising material that is finished the day it goes live. It is closer to a system that supports the first conversations with each potential customer. This idea runs through every business website we build, because someone assesses it before they ever speak to you. For the order of the work, read structure before design. For who judges the result, see how decision makers evaluate a website. The idea that ties them together is in a website as a decision system.

Structure matters more than any other element, because a visitor reads a site more easily when they can move around it easily. Nielsen Norman Group found that people read only about 28% of the words on an average visit. So they rely on the layout and the headings to find their way.

A site often grows bit by bit. A page is added when a service starts, another when someone asks for it, a third because a competitor has one. After five years it is worth designing the whole. With an overall structure, every page has its place, the hierarchy is clear and the navigation is the same in every section.

Then the visitor forms a mental picture of the site: they know where things are and how they connect. With that picture, every click takes them where they expect. In plain terms, the content is organised so that it is easy to find. Specialists call this information architecture. A simple test: if two colleagues agree at once on where a piece of information lives on your site, a visitor will find it easily too.

Specific wording persuades because it speaks only about your own company and nobody else. Phrases such as "innovative approaches" or "customer focus" could be written by any company in any industry. The careful visitor skips them, while specific facts can be checked and compared.

Nielsen Norman Group measured this. Pages written in a short, scannable and objective style had 124% better usability than the same content in promotional language. Their explanation is worth remembering: users dislike boastful language, because they must filter it out to find the facts.

The answer is in the details. Say who the service is for, what it includes, what its limits are, how long it takes and what the first step is. One sentence that describes only you is worth more than ten that fit everyone. The buyer notices within the first paragraph.

Every page needs one main reader, because that is how it speaks clearly to that reader. When one page addresses management, technical staff and operations at the same time, the message spreads thin. The reader has to work out which sentences are meant for them, and the decision is delayed.

Picture a services page with a paragraph about the vision for the board, a list of integrations for the engineer and a note on fitting into operations, all in the same order for everyone. Each reader scans it and finds that only a third of it concerns them.

The answer is not three different sites. It is enough to decide who each page is for and to give the others a clear path to their own. A short line such as "For technical teams, see the integration details" respects everyone's time. For how different readers weigh things up, see our page about industries.

A website helps the decision when, besides information, it gives the reader a way to assess it. It says what matters in the choice, what to compare and how to decide. So the visitor does not have to build that framework alone. They find the comparison ready and move on to the next step.

The table sums up the five foundations, what the visitor gains from each and where you start.

It is worth looking at the investment in the same way. A site is priced in pages and pictures, but its value lies in the clarity of what it communicates. The page on project investment explains how to think about that difference.

Design is the last layer, which makes a good structure pleasant to use. The structure, the content and the logic of the navigation must exist before it, because design brings them out but does not replace them. On top of a sound foundation, design gives your business an image that suits it.

The web credibility guidelines of the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, drawn from research with more than 4,500 people, strike a useful balance. They say professional design counts and should suit the purpose of the site. But they give equal weight to things that do not come from design: a real business, easy contact, information that can be checked, up-to-date content, texts without errors, and a site that is easy to use and useful.

So design counts, as one of ten factors. When a company has redesigned its site three times, the next improvement usually lies in the content and the structure. The same needs appear again and again in real projects. The case studies show how we meet them in website and platform projects.

You improve an existing website by starting with structure and wording and leaving design for last. Decide who the site is for and write down the questions that must be answered. Organise the content around them, rewrite with details and then give it a look. With all the steps, a rebuild changes the substance and not only the surface.

1. Decide the readers. Name the two or three kinds of people who decide, and what each one must learn.

2. Audit what exists. List every page and mark it keep, merge, rewrite or remove. Pages that answer no question are usually removed.

3. Rebuild the structure. Put the remaining content in an order that follows the questions, with menu names that someone outside the company understands.

4. Rewrite with details. Replace each general claim with a fact, an example or a clear limit.

5. Add decision support. For each service, write who it is for, what it includes and what follows.

6. Draw simple page layouts without colours. Test them with someone who does not work with you.

7. Apply the visual design last. Check the finished pages against the original questions.

For what a good result looks like, read what makes a business website effective. The stages we follow in our projects are on the process page.