The Web is full of horrendous sites, and we're not just talking about bad design. There are many other elements besides how your website looks that go into making it customer-friendly -- not to mention something that inspires them to actually do business with you.
From thorough contact information to customer testimonials, here are the essentials that every small business website should have for it to effectively help you do business.
1. A clear description of who you are
Someone who stumbles upon your website shouldn't have to do investigative work to figure out what, exactly, it is that you do. That means clearly stating your name and summing up your products or services right on the homepage, says John Zhuang, of Web-design and SEO-optimization firm Winning Interactive.
"Tell people this is the right website that they have been searching for," he says. "[A clear description] will attract the visitor's attention immediately within 2-3 seconds, and encourage them to stay on your website longer."
2. A simple, sensible Web address
Don't make things complicated.
"Your domain name is like your brand. It should be easy for a user to type it into a Web browser or an e-mail address," says Ron Wright, the founder of business Web design and online marketing firm Accentix.
He adds: "I always recommend the .com domain as users are conditioned to type that extension when they enter a Web address. For non-profits or organizations, I usually recommend using a .org domain for branding purposes, but also recommend having a .com version of the domain in case a user accidentally types the .com address."
Wright also suggests avoiding dashes (which can cause SEO headaches) and numbers (which can cause confusion for customers).
3. An easily-navigated site map
Clear links to the most important pages, and a site map, are crucial for guiding visitors to the information they're looking for.
"Be sure your navigation is clearly laid out. I always recommend using dropdowns in the navigation menu so the visitor can see the content under every heading from virtually any page. You want to make it very easy for your visitors to find what they are looking for, or what you want them to know," Wright suggests.
4. Easy-to-find contact information
You wouldn't want to lose a customer to a competitor just because you made it difficult for them to get in touch with you.
"Not every online visitor has the patience to click through every page on your website to find the contact information," says Zhuang.
"The best place for the contact information is the top left or top right corner of the home page," he recommends. "It is also a good practice to include contact information in every page of the website in the footer or side bar or even in top right corner, which helps the visitors to find it more easily."
You should also be sure to include several ways for them to contact you -- phone, e-mail, and a standard contact form, are all good options. Forbes also suggests including your address, and even a link to your location in Google maps.
"One of the biggest mistakes business owners make is to force only one way to reach them," says Wright. "The point is to make it very easy for users to communicate with you on their terms."
5. Customer testimonials
Honest words from others help make your products or services more tangible to customers who are visiting you online.
"They help your potential customers to build trust in you, especially if you are new," Zhuang says. "[And they] help shoppers to confirm whether the product [or] services meet their needs."
"People love to hear stories from real people," he adds. "They help people [find out] other things you haven't said [on] your website."
6. An obvious call to action
"Tell the online visitors literally what you want them to do with clear tones of commend," says Zhuang. "For instance, you may want them to call you now for free quote, or sign up to your exclusively online coupons, or add products to the online shopping cart, etc."
And, he adds, call attention to your suggestion -- by using special buttons or highlighting the text, for example.
7. Know the basics of SEO
Your website won't do you as much good if no one can stumble upon it. Become familiar with the SEO basics to make it more accessible by search engine.
"You don't need to employ mysterious, ninja, black hat SEO types to rank well on the search engines. Simply make sure your website is coded correctly," Wright says.
That means using the correct keywords throughout your text, putting in plenty of links, naming your page titles and URLs correctly, and employing the magic of images and videos.
8. Fresh, quality content
For many businesses, your website is your first impression on a customer. You want to give them what they're looking for, and perhaps even give them a reason to keep coming back.
Wright says, "The user is looking for something. Make sure you give it to them.... [and be] sure your content is original, well written and valuable."
Fresh content is a goldmine for SEO, as well. You can keep your content from getting stale (and give your company some personality, too) by incorporating a regularly-updated blog or connecting in your social media feeds.
9. A secure hosting platform
Having your online information hijacked is a nightmare, and, should it happen to your business, it could cost you customers.
"It is imperative that you have a secure, trustworthy hosting company to keep the bad guys out and your content up and running," says Wright. "It is also very important to keep your content management system updated in order to stay one step ahead of the hackers."
10. A design and style that's friendly to online readers
As Forbes puts it, "Web surfers have the attention spans of drunken gnats."
Zhuang describes it in more detail: "Online visitors often scan through a Web page to sample the content first when they open a new Web page. If they feel like they are on the right page, they will slow down to read the full story. To enhance user's experience on your small business website, you need to organize the content for scanning."
He recommends three style points for online writing to keep in mind:
- Break things down into short paragraphs, with headers if necessary
- Use bullet points
- Highlight important words or phrases.
Wright adds, "In the end, simplicity and basic colors are the best bet. Again, the content is the focus, not dancing clowns at the top of the page."
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Comments:
Great info regarding improving our business....
Great list! A great design is where it starts.
I think a clear call to action is something that a lot of businesses overlook. It's easy to get overwhelmed when you have different parts of your company all wanting the prime real estate of your home page design, but you need to keep a clear focus on the goals of the site and how to best achieve them. A strong information architecture plan is a great way to ensure this. It will secure quality content for all that you need to convey to your customers and with a quality user experience focused design, will have your visitors entering your sales funnel and bringing your business more revenue.
I dont agree with keeping your content management system updated - in fact, making the actual update can be just as a risk, then keeping it to a very old version. The latest updates can sometimes have bugs which can be manipulated by hackers. Thats just my two cents anyway, Ali @ http://iClickster.com
Easy to find contact information is a great one I see a lot of business sites with these problems. Its up to me and my company www.vermillionsky.com to help them out. I also wrote
Good points all. I think the most important thing to say is that your site should be set up to convert. In other words, everything about it should be designed to meet your specified business objectives. The number 1 rule for eCommerce conversions here: http://www.siteprebuilder.com/content/1-rule-ecommerce-conversions-explained
This is a very helpful article indeed. I need more help than I originally though lol. I have started a couple of websites. One is for people relocating to the Austin, San Antonio, Houston, or Dallas/Fort Worth areas http://cashbackapartmentlocating.com The other is a small website that I made for my construction and painting company in Houston. http://fortbendcontracting.com
Thank you for the information. Hollie's Sweets
Nice information.Good and unique content always content always drives the traffic provided SEO is implemented properly.If possible a Free Mobile application for the website would add bread to butter. www.CuttersAndKnives.com
Great article! Another thing that can often be mis-perceived is Flash websites. What is this? Simply put, they are websites that aren't friendly with search engines. It may be pretty to look at and interact with, but you aren't likely to get any organic visitors who search for you through Google, nor will you get any mobile visitors. Flash is not supported on about 98% of mobile devices, including the iPhone/ iPad. Think of Flash as a locked package that search engines cannot read other than seeing it as a "flash video file". Content within the package is unreadable. Depending on the industry, certain clients want the effects, animation and all the other bells and whistles but it hurts going this direction in the long run. Remember, we live in the day and age of mobile phones. That's our two cents! www.macrodesigngroup.com
Definitely agree and like the Forbes comment in #10 about "drunken gnats". Calls to action are so important for site users but for the small business, SEO is really important as well as an easy to use site editing set of tools. A lot of the popular ones out there are ace (wordpress etc) but sometimes overkill for small business users not used to updating websites. Latteperday (http://www.latteperday.com) makes this easy and includes a bunch of the other things too (secure hosting, easy navigation, modern / cool design etc).
Good list of essentials. These can vary by web designer, so really the best bet to make sure that each of these aspects is used in the creation of your small business's website is to make your website yourself. Of course, that doesn't mean you have to learn code and type up your site yourself. You can easily utilize the plethora of website building services out there. Sites like this can help you take full control of the direction you want your website to go. http://bit.ly/guPKDi
#8 is often ignored - I see so many small businesses put up a basic website then ignore it. To be really effective, a website should be updated weekly (at least) with fresh, engaging, useful content. When your website gives readers information they are interested in, it automatically positions you and your company as an expert in the field.
Number 2 and 4 are the one's most businesses ignore. Don't assume that people will know how to spell your domain name, if you can't afford to buy a premium name, just get an abbreviation or make a call to action (LowerMyBLAH.com, FixMyBLAH.com) which is important if you advertise on the radio or TV. And put your phone number everywhere! I put my personal cellphone on top of every page so you can always call me directly. Dan CheapSites.com
I think anyone planning to build a website must have these ten things in mind before embarking on the project. This list will help them a lot and will actually make their work easy during its implementation.
How much will it cost to set up something like that, I need it, please? And an sms web portal website? Please reach me on jethroalberts@yahoo.com with details. Thank you.
Nice points for small business website. But as an online marketer, I will focus more on building a list of email subscribers or social media followers to follow up in the future. A attractive design of opt-in form and irresistible offer for website visitors to sign up is critical in small business website. Thanks.
Call to action is really important, but frequently it not well figured.
Interesting article. However, point #5 (customer testimonials) those who use them must be very much aware of the strict FTC rules regarding them and their usage on any website. If you are not familiar with the requirements and plan on using customer testimonials, then I strongly suggest checking out the following link http://business.ftc.gov/documents/shutting-door-deceptive-endorsements-ftcs-revised-endorsement-guides to make sure that you comply
Amazing...was just having a discussion about point #4 this morning. It took, count them, 5 clicks to find a phone number for this guys small business. It's really the basic stuff that gets the most bang for the buck. Nice article.
Very nice points in this article. However, it doesn't have much to say about building a website, and delivering products - both important issues for a small online business. MadBeeTech (http://www.madbeetech.com) is a web host specializing in hosting sites that sell downloadable files. A MadBeeTech hosted site includes a site builder that makes it fast and easy to set up your own .com site that includes support for fully automated digital download selling. Buyers end up at your PayPal page, so their money goes right into your PayPal account. A buyer immediately receives an auto-email that includes a link to download the purchased file. It's all fully automated.
I'll disagree with No. 3. If visitors keep referring to your sitemap for navigation, then it means your navigation sucks.
These are certainly 10 important things. I don't know if they were intended to be in any sort of order, but adjusting the order might make it more useful. As a web designer who works with small businesses, I think the most important part of the website is the question you ask yourself before beginning the website. This is connected with the "call to action" referenced here. But I think it is important to note that just checking "call to action" off of the list is not enough. Before starting to put virtual pen to paper on a website, you really need to answer the question of "what do I want the website to do?" Of course every business ultimately wants their site to increase sales, but the question is how can you use web technology to achieve that. Make sure the call to action is a call to the right action. Figuring this out is harder than it seems. And it isn't something that a designer or developer can figure out for you.
I liked the article. I would also want to provide an insight into this issue. I would prefer a wordpress, blogger based webspace than a secured server. This helps us in cost minimization and also helps in change of layout and other technical issues at minimal cost. A blog also scores high over a website due to its dynamism and also by the virtue of its architecture.
I can't agree more with this, particularly on points 4 & 5. Making it easy for the customer to get in touch with you is vital. At Feedbackify (http://www.feedbackify.com) we make this easy, with our Feedback tab being accessible on every page of the website. It's also a great way to collect testimonials from your customers - providing you get their permission of course!