While the initial stages of HubSpot CMS web design typically just involve migration of a business’ website over to the HubSpot CMS, most businesses that use HubSpot for marketing automation understand that today’s users want a different type of experience with the brands they support. Experienced inbound marketers create content that fosters deeper relationships with their prospects and customers. 

However, with Google’s most recent updates, content for the sake of content isn’t going to be enough to keep your site optimized and ranking and your visitors engaged. Instead, what we call  the continuous improvement model is the approach most web marketers will be taking so they can optimize their websites, boost page load times, diversify content offerings, and make a truly enjoyable experience for all their website visitors that improves month after month.

Here are just a few areas of focus you’ll want to consider as you really dig into the power of your website presence leveraging HubSpot’s CMS. 

User Research

• Who are the users absorbing your content?
• What makes them tick?
• What devices are they using?
• What topics move them?

Establishing one or more buyer personas is just the first stage of your your investigation of the prospects, leads, and customers who frequent your website. Once you’ve established the personas, you need to take a deeper dive into how they’re interacting with your content, the types of devices they’re coming from, and what topics and resources are performing the best. Sure, you’ve created a massive library of blogs and other content, but have you taken the time to explore how your users are actually interacting with each piece of content as they proceed on their journey?

A deeper look into the analytics surrounding your report downloads, the bounce rates on your landing pages, customer e-mail surveys, interaction with your resources and menu navigation, and exploring the amount of time your users spend reading your top performing blogs are just some of the statistics that you should be leaning on to help you chart your course for continual improvements to your marketing processes and HubSpot CMS website design in 2022.

For one of our clients with an e-commerce website, for example, we found that more than 60% of its traffic comes from mobile devices. We thus put a huge focus on mobile friendly/responsive design for its new website. After a redesign of its website and optimization for mobile users, it saw a significant increase in online sales.

Tools such as heat mapping, funnels in Google Analytics, and HubSpot’s comprehensive campaign reporting have given our clients an edge in really understanding how their users are interacting with their websites. This helps them be more thorough in their content strategy and creates a greater focus on conversion optimization, intelligent A/B testing, and experimentation with what works.

Ongoing Design Improvements

What good is user research unless you act on it? The most important aspect of the continuous improvement model is actually taking the data you compile and making active changes to your website. Our team uses Lucky Orange to analyze how visitors interact with our website, with tools that include session recordings, dynamic heat maps, and conversion funnels.

When designing your website, you probably had an idea of how your users would interact with it. All theoretical insights of a customer’s journey are only hypotheses until the site is live. Website analysis tools help test your hypothesis so you can make improvements and help optimize conversion rates. Recordings of an individual user's session with your website help you determine the obstacles they encounter prior to conversion and show exactly how they’re spending their time. Dynamic heat maps provide valuable insight on which parts of your page drive conversions; this information helps you optimize the location of your content on a landing page, website page, or blog. Combining this with the reporting tools in HubSpot’s marketing software and a web development retainer are the perfect way to amp up your conversion rates.

Integrations and Data

Several large companies approached us in the last two quarters of 2021 with marketing automation integration requests. Building integrations between the pieces of software that your organization uses bridges the gap between your marketing efforts and your operations data. This gives you the information you need to market to your prospects, leads, and customers in the most effective ways. Pulling customer data into marketing creates a more personalized experience and can help re-engage existing customers and leads.

HubSpot’s Marketing Automation, CRM, and CMS already allow businesses of every size to integrate the actions of sales and marketing — but when these powerful tools are integrated with a business’s point of sale (POS) or other operations software, businesses have everything they need to supercharge their marketing efforts.

What types of integrations should you be exploring in 2022?

• POS sales data integrations
• Loyalty program data integrations
• Payment and invoicing integrations
• Project management software (PMS) integrations
• Call software integrations
• Video activity integrations

While the App Marketplace in HubSpot has plenty of existing integrations (customer loyalty programs, project management, payments, and team messaging apps), many niche businesses are reaching out to us to help them integrate other platforms with their marketing and sales data.

You can understand the length of customer relationships, as well as their purchasing decisions and preferences, by pulling in data from other software programs used in your organization. This lets you personalize the experience you provide through your sales and marketing efforts, create a seamless experience for your customers, and simplify processes for your employees. Integrations help streamline employee workloads, allowing your organization to work more efficiently, which ultimately saves money.

Creating content for your website has been the baseline for quite some time, but your savvy prospects and customers are going to start expecting more from you. Staying ahead of these expectations starts by exploring how your website and content can continue to serve user needs. By exploring how users interact with your content, pulling in data from your operations and POS applications, and making continual improvements to landing pages and site pages, you can unlock even more potential to help drive lead generation and increase conversions. 

Embracing the continuous improvement model requires a close relationship with your HubSpot CMS developer. This partnership, combined with a powerful existing website framework, will let you make these changes at the lowest possible cost. Do you have this type of relationship with your current web development partner? It may be time to rethink how you’re engaging your developer so you can seamlessly create the experience that your users will come to expect in the new year.