When planning on creating a new website for their business, many small business entrepreneurs feel overwhelmed. Now that is understandable as creating a new website for your business is not something that should be taken lightly.
Your business website is essential to the success of your business in today’s highly digitalized and overly connected world. Before ever committing to building the website you need to think carefully about what your website needs to succeed.
Of course, you can get the services of an expert to help you with this. However, here are some of the essentials to get you started.
1. A Concise Address
The key to creating a strong web address is not making it more complicated than it has to be. It makes no sense to make the address long and complex. This just makes it more difficult for people to read and remember. Your web address should say something about your brand and what you do. It can be one word, or it can combine your brand name with a word that summarizes the service you provide. But try to keep it simple and on message for the best possible outcomes.
2. A Navigable Layout
A website that is too complicated and difficult to find your way around is always a failure. People have very short attention spans when they’re browsing the internet, so you need to satisfy their needs quickly. If you fail to do that, they will quickly leave your website and find a better one to use. You should take advantage of free web templates if you want to find out how to achieve an easy to navigate layout. This will take a lot of the work and confusion out of the process for you too.
3. Contact Information
Every business should see the importance of making it as easy as possible for potential customers to get in contact with them. If you don’t make it simple for them to ask you a question or contact you via email or phone, you could lose a customer permanently. It doesn’t take much time to include your contact details at the top of the page, so make sure you put them there. It’s also a good idea to create an ‘About’ section on the website, so people can find out more about the business.
4. Obvious Calls to Action
You should tell your visitors exactly what you want them to do when they log onto your website. That doesn’t mean only giving them one option; it means pointing them in the direction you want them to go in. Of course, they’ll make their own decision. But if you don’t make it clear what link they should click, they might not be sure where everyone on the website is. So, make sure you have a bar at the top of the page that makes it all clear. You could also use banner adverts that link to specific parts of your website.
5. A Friendly Design and Style
Making sure your content is simple to read and understand is only possible if you have a design and style that’s user-friendly. This means picking the right colors. They need to be clear and simple. Making them too bold and loud is never a good idea. And making sure the fonts stand out and can be read clearly against the background is also vital. The fonts should also be chosen very carefully for their readability. The simple fonts are always better. Classic, minimal designs are very popular at the moment, so you could consider one of these.
Conclusion
While there are a few other things that your business new website needs to succeed, at the very least, ensure the above is not missing. Your customers will love you for it and your business will be the better for it!
Website Checklist: 5 Critical Things Your Small Business Website Should Have was first posted on November 27, 2015 at 8:14 am.
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