10 things a corporate website needs

A good corporate website does more than look good; it turns visitors into customers. Here are the ten things your site must have.

A corporate website has one job: to get someone who does not know you to trust you and get in touch. If design awards, scrolling text and intro animations do not serve that job, they are mere decoration. The ten items below serve it directly. You can check your existing site against this list too.

1. Make what you do clear on the first screen

When a visitor opens the site, within three seconds they should understand this: what does this company do, where, and is it any use to me? A slogan like "We are shaping the future" does not say that. "Boiler servicing in Gaziosmanpaşa" does.

2. Show the phone number and WhatsApp on every page

Once a customer has decided to call you, they should not have to hunt for the number. On mobile, tapping the phone number should start a call and the WhatsApp button should open the chat directly. The contact form should be short too: name, phone, message is enough.

3. A separate page for each service

Listing all your services as bullet points on one page gives little information to both the customer and Google. If each service has its own page, the person searching for that service lands directly on it. A good service page covers what you do, who you do it for, how the process works and the frequently asked questions.

4. Real references

Nobody believes the phrase "hundreds of happy customers". Photos of the work you have done, the names of the companies you have worked with and, where possible, customer reviews are convincing. A few real references are better than many vague ones.

5. Real people on the About page

People do business with people, not with companies. Your founding story, your team and a real photo of your office build far more trust than stock images.

6. Mobile-friendliness and speed

The great majority of your visitors come from a phone. If the site does not load on a phone within a few seconds, the visitor hits the back button. Oversized images and unnecessary plugins are the most common causes of slowness.

7. An admin panel

You should not have to chase the agency just to change a phone number. A panel where you can update the text, photos and services yourself keeps the site current for years.

8. SEO foundations

A separate title and description for each page, clean URLs, an automatic sitemap and structured data. These are hard to add later and easy to build in from the start. If the foundations are not sound, the SEO work you do will not be productive either.

9. Measurement tools

How many people came to the site, where did they come from, how many of them called? Without Analytics and Search Console set up, you cannot know the answers. The setup is done once and is free.

10. SSL, KVKK and legal texts

The padlock in the address bar (SSL) is now considered essential; on sites without it the browser shows a "not secure" warning. If you collect personal data through a form, there should also be a privacy policy and a KVKK notice (the disclosure required under Turkey's personal data protection law).

What it should not have

• Loading animations that make you wait when the site opens
• Music or video that starts by itself
• Empty pages that say "under construction"
• A news section that has not been updated for years
• Social media icons that go nowhere when clicked

You can take a look at our corporate website service, which includes these ten items as standard, and read about what to look for when choosing an agency in this post.