There are so many things to think about when designing a website, it is hard to keep them all straight. Today we have found some of the best ideas from the best sites, developers and designers for your small business website.
- It’s About Time
Many small businesses forget that they only have a few seconds to make an impression on the target marketing reaching their website. In fact, the amount of time that most people spend on a small business website is about 5 seconds. The best websites draw people in quickly and keep them moving throughout the site with engaging copy.
- Call to Action
These are the pieces of your website that can push your consumers to engage, such as call now, buy now, add to cart, etc. These are the pieces that drive action.
- Leverage your Current Consumers
Consumer testimonials, feedback, free shipping and good return policies are a great way to ensure that your customers are happy. Make these available and talk about them in obvious ways on your website.
- Use Social Media
Social media is a driver consumers these days. Instead of believing the voice of the company, consumers, and more especially, young consumers listen to their friends. When the younger generation is talking about you on social media, your brand can explode literally overnight.
- Ease of Use
A user friendly design should be easy to navigate, with no dead ends, hard to find answers to questions or irrelevant information. The harder it is for people to find what they are looking for, the quicker they will be off of your site. This is one of the top reasons online businesses don’t succeed.
- Use What is Available
You don’t have to start completely from scratch to create a unique and catchy website. In fact, writing your own code can be the worst thing for your growing online brand. Already established platforms, such as Joomla, Magento and WordPress all have thousands, if not millions of users. This means there is more support, answers to questions and an already established way of doing things. You can still create a unique design and use a template, it just requires some creative thinking.
- Update Content
Staying fresh, on topic, and current is a great way to keep your business growing and on the cutting edge. Use a blog to continually update with new ideas, products, etc., and keep your website content fresh and up-to-date by rewriting as policies, products, and the marketplace continue to change and grow.
- Don’t Store Online
If you are building for business, DO NOT, store customer information online without first securing your website. Even if you can get your website locked down, it is still a good idea to keep all private consumer information offline. This will create a feeling of trust and security for your consumers and keep them coming back.
- Design for SEO
When building a website, research the best SEO techniques and use them, generously. Keywords are important when building your website. Pick a few you want to focus on. If you are an online homemade shoe store, use keywords that make sense, such as shoes, handmade shoes, craftsman, designer, etc. This will not only bring you up in search results but will keep your content on topic to match what people are searching for.
Finally, Don’t Bore your Customers!
Perhaps one of the biggest mistakes websites make, is making people bored. No one wants to read three page agreements, scroll through two page check-out forms or even spend 45 minutes answering questions just to see what your selling. Make things simple, responsive and entertaining. If you do need to create long forms, pages full of text or even pages full of personal questions, be sure to do it in an engaging way, with good, creative writing that still gets the technical points across.
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