How These Brands Made The List

Every company on this list is unique and so is their website. While no website is perfect (that’s impossible, really), we’ve found fifty companies in more than twenty different industries that have an exceptional, world-class corporate website. Not only do these websites score high in beauty, but all of them score higher in brains. These brands have figured out how to turn their websites into an inbound marketing powerhouse -- arguably the most important factor to business success in the digital age.

Criteria for a World-Class Website:

Brands on this list meet most of the following criteria:

Design and user experience

• Overall pleasing design and aesthetic, clutter-free
• No annoying advertising or interfering elements
• Easy for visitors to navigate and find the information they need
• Great layout and structure
• High performance, fast-loading, and 99%+ uptime
• Reliability and security

Content richness

• Fresh, regular content published often
• Valuable content and thought-leadership
• Content for buyers at any stage of the buying cycle
• A blog or rich content library, such as whitepapers, ebooks, videos, graphics, and other media

Mobile optimization

• Responsive design or mobile-specific versions
• Ease of browsing from majority of mobile devices

Lead generation

• Use of forms to collect visitor information
• Use of dedicated landing pages
• Use of calls-to-action

Search engine optimization

• No spammy SEO tactics
• Use of SEO best practices
• Ranks high in search for top keywords

Social media

• Makes social sharing easy from website
• Encourages social engagement, discussion, or community

Value proposition

• Clear and strong value proposition of brand’s products or services
• Use of plain-English and not corporate gobbledygook
• Addresses needs of buyer personas and target audience

Creativity and innovation

• Creative uses of marketing and messaging on brand’s website
• Innovative techniques and use of new technologies

Unified experience

• All web elements working together
• Cohesive brand experience across website and channels

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