What are the latest best practices for building a corporate website?

Best Practices in 2011-2012 for Websites:

1. SEO is part of the FIRST phase of website planning. Keyword research must be done before any programming is done -- you want each page URL to be search-friendly with keyword phrases incorporated, and you want to know the keyword focus of each page.

2. Menus MUST instantly tell the visitor where they will find what they're looking for. Spend more time planning your menu topics. The bulk of visitors want to click on the first logical link -- be sure they find what they're looking for in that first click.

3. The answer to the question "why should you buy from us?" MUST be incorporated into every page of your website. Because the majority of most websites' traffic comes from search engines -- and virtually any page of your website could be the "landing page" -- you need to include some of the "why we're different" language on every page.

4. The area "above the fold" is the most critical real estate on your website, and that "above the fold" area is getting smaller. Many consumers browse on a computer with multiple windows open -- meaning the visible portion of the web page is very small. As we spend "90% of our copywriting time writing the headline", so we now need to spend "90% of our design and layout time working on the design of that very top portion of the website.

5. Write MORE SPECIFIC headlines and subheads. 90% of web visitors are scanning -- help them learn more about how your product/service will benefit them, just by scanning. (More specific headlines and subheads are also better for SEO purposes.)

6. If you sell a product that needs a "showroom" (i.e., your product is sold based on its looks) -- clothing, jewelry, home furnishings, etc. -- then focus on fabulous visuals of your products. But if you sell a product that needs more than a pretty picture to sell it, focus on copy that actually sells.

7. Understand how to recognize Copy that Sells: a) Talks to each individual "persona" type that visits your website; b) Addresses information needs at each stage of the sales process. Be sure your content does both.

8. Incorporate OFFERS that will build you a list of "A", "B", and "C" leads. You need well thought-out offers for each persona, and for each stage of the sales process. If you need more leads, make more lower-commitment offers.

9. Cool features -- like Flash, Java, and other types of animation -- should be used only when they add to the sell. Most will make your content less search-friendly. If these cool features are going to cost you $2500 (as an example), ask yourself how many more products you'll need to sell to cover that $2500 -- and how likely the cool feature will be to sell those additional products to pay for itself.

Effective websites in 2011-2012 will be: search-friendly, easily usable, valuable content-focused, persona-focused, valuable offer-focused, written to sell, and designed to move the eye to the most important elements.

You framed the question with the phrase "Corporate" Website. In most cases that put the entire discussion in a "Corporate" box which limits creativity and what you can do with your marketing..

The first question I would have is... What is your goal with this web site,
Brand awareness? Customer / Prospect engagement, or do want to actually use you web site as a entrance to your sales funnel?

Does "best practices" mean that you want to do what everyone else is doing? To follow the pack, because in my humble opinion that almost always get's the least results.

Marketing is a team sport, and the people you want on your team are NOT people with a marketing degree but rather people who understand consumer psychology, direct response copy-writing, and marketing/sales funnels... Wish you the very best.

use a third party. period.

Best Practices in 2011-2012 for Websites:

1. SEO is part of the FIRST phase of website planning. Keyword research must be done before any programming is done -- you want each page URL to be search-friendly with keyword phrases incorporated, and you want to know the keyword focus of each page.

2. Menus MUST instantly tell the visitor where they will find what they're looking for. Spend more time planning your menu topics. The bulk of visitors want to click on the first logical link -- be sure they find what they're looking for in that first click.

3. The answer to the question "why should you buy from us?" MUST be incorporated into every page of your website. Because the majority of most websites' traffic comes from search engines -- and virtually any page of your website could be the "landing page" -- you need to include some of the "why we're different" language on every page.

4. The area "above the fold" is the most critical real estate on your website, and that "above the fold" area is getting smaller. Many consumers browse on a computer with multiple windows open -- meaning the visible portion of the web page is very small. As we spend "90% of our copywriting time writing the headline", so we now need to spend "90% of our design and layout time working on the design of that very top portion of the website.

5. Write MORE SPECIFIC headlines and subheads. 90% of web visitors are scanning -- help them learn more about how your product/service will benefit them, just by scanning. (More specific headlines and subheads are also better for SEO purposes.)

6. If you sell a product that needs a "showroom" (i.e., your product is sold based on its looks) -- clothing, jewelry, home furnishings, etc. -- then focus on fabulous visuals of your products. But if you sell a product that needs more than a pretty picture to sell it, focus on copy that actually sells.

7. Understand how to recognize Copy that Sells: a) Talks to each individual "persona" type that visits your website; b) Addresses information needs at each stage of the sales process. Be sure your content does both.

8. Incorporate OFFERS that will build you a list of "A", "B", and "C" leads. You need well thought-out offers for each persona, and for each stage of the sales process. If you need more leads, make more lower-commitment offers.

9. Cool features -- like Flash, Java, and other types of animation -- should be used only when they add to the sell. Most will make your content less search-friendly. If these cool features are going to cost you $2500 (as an example), ask yourself how many more products you'll need to sell to cover that $2500 -- and how likely the cool feature will be to sell those additional products to pay for itself.

Effective websites in 2011-2012 will be: search-friendly, easily usable, valuable content-focused, persona-focused, valuable offer-focused, written to sell, and designed to move the eye to the most important elements.

Many businesses use Best Practice, which is like driving your car using the rear view mirror. If you're trying to gain an advantage you need to be ahead of "Best Practice".

But here's some of the cutting edge thinking...

1: Enthuse
The primary aim of a website is not to inform, but to enthuse.
To build desire to purchase, learn more or engage.
Everything else should be secondary.

2: People don't need to read your stuff to know about you.
In the information age, people are searching for the real information - not what businesses want to tell you. When they put in a search term, they will open the articles, blogs, case studies and reviews which come up, not the company website.

3: Relevance is critical
Buyers look for relevance most of all. They look for something right for them. They look for their name first. Then those they know, especially those they look up to. That means the front page is much less important than a page for their type of industry, their size of company or their geography. Name dropping works, but only if relevant to them - a 2 person consultancy is not that interested in what works for WalMart, but will perk up if you mention a close competitor.

4: Focus
The idea of the mass market is out of date. Why people buy, what they are looking for etc. differs. Imagine a website as a triangle. It used to have a home page, from which you drilled down for information. Now that triangle is inverted, with lots of landing pages, all accessing the same resource.

5: Keep up the momentum
The journey should be seamless. If you're talking about XXX on a social network and people click through, they should expect more on the same, not a sudden jolt into a corporate site with half a dozen clicks to get back to what they were talking about.

6: Put interaction at the core
The most important benefit of the internet is its interactivity. The old fashioned "talk at and give us your money" mindset has no place in the modern world. So give people ways to engage, to respond and to take action on the information they receive. If they want to go one-to-one make that easy for them.

There's more but even 6 is too many to take in in one go.

Plan it before you build it. Know what the site map will look like by creating a list of key elements to be in the navigation.

Who will build it and whop will update it? This is key in deciding what platform you will use to get the effect and usability you need. If you are going to use a content management system make sure it is something YOU can use and not just the developer.

If you are going to have video or animation, do it with HTML5, not Flash. Flash won't work on many mobile devices, and today that is very important.

Have a way to update the site regularly with fresh information. If you're not going to blog (you should) then make sure there is a plan for regular updates so the site stays fresh for visitors and search engines.

Make sure there is a way to find critical information fast. Contact info, social networks, customer support.

Think like a customer. What does your target market want to see? What do your competitors do?

Use a service like SpyFu to see what keywords the competition is using and see how you can make your SEO even better.

All the above suggestions are valuable in considering your website.

Keep in mind that the objective of the search engine is to provide the most valuable content to the searcher, so their advertising stays in front of the searcher. If they fail to do that, the searcher will switch search engines and the new one will get the ad revenue.

Content is the most important. Content makes your site more valuable to the searcher. For top rankings, focus on the value. Ask yourself, if you were doing the search, whether your site brings you the most valuable information. If not, make sure it does. Use the suggestions in the other answers to structure the content, but don't simply construct using them without providing the value in the content.

One of the most useful exercises that I know for an effective website is designing visitor personas so that you can walk through your content, navigation structure etc. in the shoes of your various different visitor types. This can be really eye-opening in terms of seeing where confusion may occur, where the roadblocks are, etc.

I outline a complete methodology for doing this in my new book "42 Rules for a Web Presence That Wins", and I'd be happy to send that section to anyone who might be interested. There are also five sampler sections at my website http://www.websitesthatwin.com/book-preview.html