10 examples of corporate websites we love

A corporate website must capture the essence of your organization. No matter its size, it is important to project a professional positive image to visitors.

Often a website is the first impression a business makes on potential customers. It not only functions as a way for customers to find out information but it reinforces your brand and image. So, a good website is absolutely essential for businesses in a digital age.

Your website should let visitors know the organization’s values as well explaining what it does. Design is super important to an organization’s brand, as is the functionality and navigation. It has to stand out from your competitors. A poorly designed website or one that isn't functional portrays a company in a bad light. Websites need to be engaging and tell a persuasive story to hold visitors’ attention, build trust and convert them into customers.

Here are 10 corporate websites we love and what makes them great.

Pixar’s website is a great example of a minimalist approach to a corporate website. While it's simple, it has the information a visitor needs. Most of the landing page displays Pixar’s latest films.

It has an easy-to-use menu with quick links to pages of information about the organization. Its simplicity is clean to the eye but it contains everything anyone needs to know about the organization, its films, technology and careers.

Blab Studio’s website is brilliant; an advertising, branding, communications agency website that visually lets visitors interact with its innovativeness. It is interactive, simple and keeps you scrolling and clicking to find out more. Ultimately all clicks on this website leads to giving your contact details for more information.

Waaark Design creates websites and their website is simple. Its beautiful design uses animations that come to life when moving your cursor around and between page transitions. It is short and to the point. The use of a simple menu helps you navigate information and it has a portfolio of previous work.

Inventia Life Sciences is revolutionizing 3D cell biology. It uses a video of its scientific process on the landing page which draws the visitor straight in to discovering more. It has a clean, simple design with the use of three main colors. The website is easy to navigate with a menu at the top and the content is not overly long or scientific. It's professionally written and easy to understand.

Apple’s website is a great example of a simple, sleek corporate website that keeps the look elegant. It draws you in so you continue reading. On entering the website you see the latest iPhone lying face down, black on black. It instantly draws you in to discover more about the product.

It's a particularly simple website with a set of navigation tabs across the top. But looks are deceiving as it has a lot of useful information about Apple products. You can find everything from downloads to where to buy your next iPhone. It has a comprehensive list of tabs at the bottom of the page, or you can use the search function to find exactly what you want.

NASA’s website is world-class and aims to capture the imagination of educators and young people. The homepage has a lot of stories with interesting images and a caption that links to the full story. This works well for NASA as visitors can find all the latest information about NASA’s developments.

The website is easy to browse using the tabs, and the NASA TV section helps engage visitors with video.

Prada’s website is incredibly simple, highlighting its latest range with an animated woman pouring color into her clothes. It depicts understated glamor, which is what Prada is all about. You can scroll left to right and up and down the page to find out more about its fashion ranges and locations.

Simple tabs across the top of the website take you to different parts of the site for more about its events, women’s and menswear.

Inside Company is a marketing consultancy that grows brands from the inside out. The website is innovative, using animated geometric shapes that change as you scroll through. The color use is unusual, with sometimes bright but muted colors.

It has a simple floating menu to keep you moving through the site, and the copywriting is sleek and to the point. And it has an impressive portfolio of work to encourage visitors to contact the organization.

MCX is a group of tech companies specializing in cybersecurity, communication and creating smart communities. This is a stunning animated website that uses color well to help get the message across. While at first glance there appear to be few pages, once you start looking around, there's all sorts of interesting information that keeps you wanting to know more.

Ballsystem is a truly avant-garde website for automotive services. When you land on the page, it's all black with animated white lines. But when you click on the page it turns into a video of the human machine at work. The use of mostly black and white and animation gives the website a high tech feel.

The website is simple and to the point with good copywriting. It uses tabs across the top to make navigation through the site quick and easy.

Websites are the windows into the soul of an organisation. But what makes a great corporate website? The answer is complex. It takes many elements working together to create a well-designed, functional website that keeps visitors engaged for more than a few seconds. And what appeals to one person others may not like.

The following are some of the elements that make a good website.

Good design that appeals to visitors is vital to how people perceive a business online. Design includes layout, colors, fonts, images, the overall theme, logos and use of white space. And it should relate to the industry. A website should work seamlessly with all on and offline promotional materials. This helps build a cohesive brand across all media channels that becomes instantly recognizable.

A corporate website needs to be professional, clean, simple and relate to the organisation’s image and brand. For example, a construction company is unlikely to use bright colors or overly fancy fonts. The color palette and use of fonts would be in line with the company and what it does. It is an opportunity to incorporate your brand image.

Web design needs to also be responsive and optimized for browsing on mobile devices. Many people tend to use mobile devices these days. All websites must be easy for people to browse no matter what device they use.

It makes good sense to use professional website designers. You'll want to find talented freelance web developers, a web designer and possibly a copywriter. This will ensure the result is innovative and stands out in a crowded market. Design must be clean and clutter-free, unique and engaging. This is difficult to pull off for amateurs, so carefully select a web designer to create your website. Make sure you always check out their design portfolio.

Website navigation is like a GPS that helps visitors find information. Usually there are navigation tabs at the top of the page or a sidebar on the left-hand side of the page. But no matter how you add navigation to your website, it must be uncluttered, clearly labelled and easy to use. Group similar pages together under one heading. If navigating the site is difficult, visitors will give up and click the back button quickly. They'll go back to Google and click the link to the next organization in the search results.

A good website also teaches visitors how to use the website. An original website design is fantastic, but it still needs to be easy to use and have good layout. This is critical for corporate websites with goods and services they want people to buy.

Relevant, quality content that targets the preferred audience is another element of a good corporate website. Content should be concise and professionally written, informative and interesting to read. It should entice visitors to keep looking through the website.

Good content sets the organisation up as a thought leader and an expert in the industry. This includes product and service promotion, white papers, videos, blogs and catalogs. The purpose of content is to engage visitors and value add to their knowledge. Keep refreshing your content for good SEO that helps a website rank well in search engines.

A call to action compels visitors to act immediately. There is no magic formula but the key is to find what works for your organisation. You may have to try different formats, colors, font sizes, page placement and words that call people to act to find what works best.

For example, encourage visitors to sign up for email updates to increase your client database. So add an email signup button. Add links to product information and promotions they can benefit from immediately.

Whether a corporate website ranks in search engine results depends on how well you optimize the content. This is just as important as the website design. If your website is invisible, there is no point having a website.

All content and images must align with the keywords, metadata and tags relevant to your site. Every page needs a core message and the content should reflect that and use relevant keywords.

A good quality corporate website aims to gain the trust of its visitors. Good website design and professional content can help promote an organisation as an authentic resource. But it is important to pay attention to the details. All content must be grammatically correct with no misspellings and well organized. The design needs to be consistent on every page with links to social media pages. And there should always be contact information for visitors to contact you directly.

No longer can a corporate website just regurgitate the same content or design as the company brochure. It needs to be unique and express the brand message. This is a chance to breathe life into your brand. It should contain concise, dynamically creative but powerful content and irresistible calls to action for lead generation.

Corporate websites are an opportunity for organizations to stand out from the crowd. A great website drives new potential customers to your business. Getting the website right reassures visitors and makes them comfortable about buying your products and services.

A corporate website that encompasses all of these elements will make a positive, lasting impression. And express your brand in a unique, new way.