Member Article

Small Business Web Design 101

As a small business, it is essential that you have a quality website. You could be focusing your efforts on gaining fans on Facebook, posting content on Twitter, and updating a whole bunch of images on Pinterest – but the fact remains that you need a central. Without it, your efforts are scattered, and therefore much less effective than attracting prospects to a dedicated website that presents them with the necessary information as well as an image of your brand and leads them straight to where they need to be. In this article, we are going to discuss web design essentials for your small business.

Properly present your products and services

The fact is that your website is your storefront, and you are trying to sell something to your audience. This means that the way you present your product and service has to be clear and effective.

A lot of businesses make the mistake of either not doing a good job at presenting their product or presenting way too many products on a single page.

Remember that first impression is everything. The product photos or graphical images have to be professional and upfront. If your website design is great, but the photos don’t properly show what they are supposed to, you have failed at your goal.

Content is king

There’s a lot of truth in the saying that content is king. The quality of your content, as well as links, is important for how your website is going to rank in search engines.

The more content you have, the better the chance for a good ranking (which, of course, doesn’t mean quantity over quality). Your audience is also drawn to quality content, and it’s a factor that will make them either stay and engage with it or leave.

You should make sure that your implement strong headlines which will make people want to read the rest. Keeping your website’s content fresh is essential. Furthermore, if you want to learn how to write quality content, look at how your competitors are doing it.

Consider the load times

Speed is another essential factor, both for search engines and for your audience. It highly affects conversions, because your website visitors don’t have the patience to wait for it to load forever. If you put a lot into the graphic design of your website, you need to make sure that both the bandwidth and the hardware can support it. It’s particularly important if your customer base is big, and you want to drive a lot of traffic to your website.

One way to make sure that your loading speed is good enough is to choose a good host. A lot of people pick a cheaper host, wanting to save some money in that area. The fact is that cheap often means unreliable and slow.

Think about the domain

Your domain should convey relevant information to people, such as who you are or what you do. It could also be a clever way to attract people to your website. There is a chance that you won’t be able to get an URL that matches your company’s name.

If that is the case, you should find an alternative URL that has the name in it or think about changing the name. It is important that it’s intuitive and brandable. It should also be easy to remember. Furthermore, you need to think about how it will look to your audience and search engines. Naturalness is another important factor to have in mind.

Provide the best user experience

It is very important how your website is organized. A good organization not only affects the way search engines see your website, but also the user experience of your visitors. When a prospective customer comes to your website, they want to find particular information about something.

This means that most often they won’t read through whole pages, and will only look at headlines, chunks of text, and images. If your website is properly organized so that it presents the necessary information in an orderly fashion, it will enable your visitor to easily and quickly get to what they are looking for. You should optimize your text by adding color and using bold and easily readable fonts to accentuate relevant information.

Make your design unique

Your website’s design is the initial impression that your audience gets about your business. It is a representation of your brand. According to a digital marketing company from Sydney, your website design needs to be unique in order to truly reflect your business. A lot of people make the mistake of using templates for their website, which only makes them look like a whole bunch of other websites out there.

Generally, the most important aspect of your website is your homepage. It’s the first page that people get to see, and it needs to clearly convey what you do and who you are. Think about the message that you want to send to your audience.

Designing your first website as a small business is a challenge. Sometimes it takes going through trial and error until you make it right. But if you follow these 6 essential tips, you will make sure that your website properly works as your storefront.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ryan Burchey .