Four Things That Every Effective Business Website Has in Common
If your business plan is to have a website that potential customers leave moments after they open it, then it’s totally fine for your website design to be slow, cumbersome, and hard to navigate. If you want your website to be a great first impression of your business to potential clients, you should follow these tips for business web development:
- A Domain Name By Any Other Name
Choose a domain name that is memorable, easy to spell, and easy to enter. Depending on the web hosting company, your domain name can as many as 56 characters. So, technically your website could be “www.HeyComeVisitMyNewWebsiteSoYouCanBuyAllTheStuffIAmSelling.com”. But studies show the domains with 20 characters are less tend to do the best. - Use Quality Graphic Design Services
Consumers these days are internet savvy. They can tell when a website is home-cooked and that is a factor that plays into their overall opinion of your business. If you’re cutting corners on your web design, are you also cutting corners on the services you provide?Many times, the web hosting company you use has a professional graphic designer on-staff, who can advise you on the look and feel of your web site, for a small fee that is rolled into the bill for all of the services provided by the web hosting company.
- Say No to Clutter
When you have a lot of graphics and information on your website, it overwhelms the users’ brains and they miss the take-away. Ask yourself what purpose each element of your website is serving, and get rid of it if it’s not important. A few other tips for reducing eye clutter on your website include:- Make sure you don’t lose the star of the page with too many calls to action. Set a goal for the purpose of each page, and make sure any content on the page serves that single goal.
- Keep your paragraphs to two to three sentences. If a paragraph block is more than six lines, most users will skip over it altogether. Make sure the add an extra space between paragraphs to let readers process what they read before reading the next paragraph, and to promote negative space that helps to declutter the look of your page.
- Keep visible links to a minimum. Create a site map with three of four umbrella subjects that all of the other links fall under. Keep the list of links hidden unless the parent subject is scrolled over.
- Focus on Search Engine Optimization
The fact is, most of the visits to your website will come through a search engine queries (and if this isn’t the case, you are probably missing out on huge opportunities for organic traffic to your site through search engines).
There is an entire science to search engine optimization that leverages the algorithm search engines use to rank websites, but the most important factor is that your website includes current, engaging content that emphasize the keywords that people enter when searching for your product.For help creating SEO-friendly content, and for direction on implementing other SEO tactics, you might want to consider involving an SEO consulting service.
Do you have any great tips for small businesses who are developing a new website? Please share them in the comment section below.
