Small Business Website Design Tips
Every small business that is serious about their branding and digital marketing needs a website. We know this — that’s why I’m writing this, and why you’re here reading it.
That’s also why we provide smb web design services — because it’s hard to sell something automatically without being able to tell them about it automatically. But I digress… ;)
How exactly is the perfect small business website supposed to look and perform? How do we know a website has been designed to be “effective?” The following website design tips will teach you exactly what to do — these tips are specifically for small, local businesses who want to reach potential customers in their area.
Let’s break it down.
The best SMB website does 2 things:
- Establishes you as the absolute expert in your industry.
- Encourages qualified visitors to purchase OR to contact you to book, learn more, or make an appointment… to purchase.
So is your website doing that? If not, how do you achieve that 2-punch website bliss? Easy peasy… follow this checklist below!
Essential Small Business Website Tips
- Make your website easy to navigate with clearly labeled pages that explain each of your services, what they entail, and how to learn more or book those services. We have full site recommendations including website structure tips here.
- Make sure your website is responsive, also known as mobile-friendly
- Keep your business’ branding consistent across your web properties
- Design around your content, instead of writing content to fit your web design
- Keep the use of sliders to a minimum — although this is a popular design feature, it has shown to kill conversions
- Make sure to answer the most common questions your potential customers usually have
- Embed testimonials and reviews where possible
- Make it easy for your visitors to contact you — using user-friendly forms and click-to-call phone numbers
- Don’t forget to install Google Analytics so you can measure your web traffic, and retargeting pixels from Facebook and Google if you plan to advertise
- Make sure the code and design is efficient to keep your site speed scores up, as site speed is now a factor in SEO rankings
Other Logistics Factors to Keep In Mind….
If you hire someone to design your small business website, make sure you keep ownership of your domain (by domain, I mean the web address — for example the domain of our website is harvestonlinemarketing.com.)
You can own your domain within your own registrar while still pointing it to any host, but it’s important to retain control of this domain so that shady marketers and other service providers can’t hold you hostage.
Why is it so important that your domain is kept the same? Well, think of it like a street address — Google knows “where” your business is located based on the domain, and it attributes your trust and authority to that domain over time. If you lose your domain, you lose all of that built up trust and have to start all over again!
You’ll also want to consider which platform is best for your needs. Which platform or host you choose depends on many factors including how much time you have to update it, how much time you can dedicate to keeping it updated and creating the initial design, and what features you need in order to establish your expertise and encourage sales and inquiries.
Wrapping Up These Tips
While putting your website together, as long as you keep the above recommendations in mind, you’ll end up with a much more effective, beautiful website than most business owners will ever put together!
