I am often approached by businesses looking to redo their small business websites design with a “minor upgrade” or they are requesting a “simple” website. Well, the definition of “minor” and “simple” is always relative. Most of the time, “simple” really means “nothing too busy”, which is a good approach to creating a web strategy.
Most small business owners believe upgrades are simply aesthetic forgetting that there are many business principles that need to be considered when creating a small business website design. First and foremost, your website is a sales tool and it must be integrated into your overall business and marketing goals. If you can grasp this, then developing a small business website strategy becomes easier. In the end, you want a visitor to your site to translate into a sale, how they do that, is how well create your web strategy.
Your website is your 24-7-365 sales person. So, I’m surprised how the simplest design-principles and content-management practices are overlooked.
In the end, neglecting your website means you are neglecting potential customers.
Do a quick audit of your website to test and see if these 5 principles exist. If they do, you’ll have a better chance of keeping visitors on your site and converting them into a sale.
Contact Info
Make your contact info plainly available to the site visitor. Depending on the look-and-feel of your site, the location can be in a few different spots, but generally speaking, above the fold is a good start.
Broken Links
Make sure all of your hyperlinks are linked to a page! Broken links are the most annoying thing for a site visitor; you will lose customers because of it. Test your site often and make sure all links work as promised. There are many free sites that offer dead-link check-ups.
Page Load Time
Make sure your page load time is fast. Load time is the time it takes for your page to load and for the site visitor to see all the content, usually in seconds. Poor load times are great excuses for site visitors to leave your site. On average, site visitors wait 4 seconds for the page to load before clicking away. The biggest contributor of load times is large image files, ideally keep them under 20Kbs, but between 20-50 Kbs is acceptable.
Fresh Content
Make sure your content is up-to-date. Information you provide your site visitor needs to be relevant and updated; otherwise, they’ll find another website that will give them what they want.
Consistent Design
Make sure your font-styles and colours are consistent with your company’s brand guidelines. More and more, the trend is moving away from your website being an open canvass to illustrate abstract colours and graphic art. That’s not too say it shouldn’t be creative. It needs to be consistent throughout the site to make it easy for the site visitor to navigate. At the most, you shouldn’t have more than 3 fonts and distinct colours per page. Otherwise, you’ll distract the site visitor from your content.
Be Real. Grow your business.
Reality Business Consulting (RBC) (www.realityconsulting.ca) is a Toronto Web Design and Small Business Marketing Company that helps small businesses grow by designing profitable, creative and practical small business marketing plans and web marketing strategies, including WordPress small business website design. Having already successfully co-founded a technology and eCommerce company, as the principle of Reality Business Consulting, I understand the challenges and needs of a small business.
If you are searching for a professional and customer-focused small business marketing company with extensive work in marketing planning, WordPress small business website design, contact us for a “Reality Check”; a no-obligation, no-charge consultation.