When a person visits your website on their mobile device, they should be able to figure out how to contact you within 30 seconds of landing on your homepage.
Start with what visitors need
This simple rule of thumb can be tricky to achieve. Your website’s design and content need to work together to make it easy for your site visitors to understand what kind of business you are, what kinds of services or products you offer, who your ideal customer is and how they can get in touch with you. Here’s how to make your small business’ website more effective.
Think like a website visitor
It’s natural for business owners to focus on explaining their own businesses, but effective websites are focused on prospective customers. Think about what kinds of questions or priorities site visitors might have. For example, they want to find out:
- What does this company do? What kinds of services or products are available?
- Who does this company work with? Would we be a good fit?
- Can they solve my problem? Are they addressing my particular interest?
- How do I get started? What happens after I get in touch?
Too often, site visitors wander around a website, frustrated by poor navigation, busy visuals, and vague messaging. Eventually, many will leave without contacting the business because they weren’t able to easily answer their own burning questions.
Map the design process
While there are lots of nifty add-ons available for small business websites, the foundation of an effective website comes back to quality web design and good content. Sit down with your web designer or developer and discuss these key items before anyone starts building pages:
- How should your website support your business’ day-to-day operations?
- Who is the ideal visitor? What kinds of things would they want to know?
- What kinds of actions would you like a visitor to take? Do you want them to schedule an appointment, call, email, or stop into your shop?
- What specific items belong in your website’s navigation – see https://www.ahrefs.com/blog/website-navigation for details. What kinds of content should be available?
- Who else on your team might contribute content or need to make changes to the website?
- How often will content need to be updated?
- Do you have any reference sites you like? Why do you like them?
In most cases, an effective small business’s website will include a clear and compelling homepage, individual pages that describe services, an about page, a simple-to-use contact page, and other supplemental content that helps answer common questions.
Design with a clear purpose
Web design isn’t just pretty pictures – it’s about creating a website that works for your business. Studio 47 Web Design can help you build a site with thoughtful organization of content to help site visitors quickly understand a business’ services, find useful information and take action. Here are some pointers to share with your web designer:
- Design should match your business’ personality. Retailers, service-based businesses, and professional practices all have different design considerations.
- Good design is often about restraint. Use plenty of white space, legible typography, and a clear visual hierarchy to emphasize key content and create a pleasant, uncluttered user experience. Busy or inconsistent designs may make it seem like your business is poorly organized.
- Keep in mind that most people will experience your website on their smartphones. Complex navigation options, huge blocks of text, and teeny-tiny buttons will turn people away.
- Not all visitors will start with your homepage. Make sure they can easily get to important information from individual service pages, blog posts, etc.
Keep the copy clear and skip the overkill
- In addition to a clear, concise homepage, develop content for each of your products and/or services. Visitors may arrive directly to individual pages via search engines or referrals.
- Consider how you describe your services. Can you organize them logically? If you offer one simple service, you might not need a lengthy, complicated website. A small, tightly-focused site might be more effective.
- A good about page shares some personality and helps build trust. Include information that would help site visitors feel good about working with you.
- Keep your contact options clear and easy-to-find. Simplify contact forms by asking for the bare minimum information to initiate a conversation. Long forms can be a deal-breaker.
- Remember that many people skim websites. Use strong headlines to organize content. Include calls to action, such as schedule an appointment, request an estimate, call for more info, throughout your website. Use buttons for important actions. A visitor shouldn’t need to read every word to find your list of services or figure out how to get in touch with you.
Find a designer who gets it
Hiring a good web designer or web professional is an investment that pays off over the life of your website. During the interview process, dig deeper than design concepts and ask about what happens after a website is built. Some important questions include:
- Who owns the site? What happens to your investment if you part ways?
- How easy is it to update content or make revisions? Will you be able to make updates to the site’s design?
- How does the designer approach mobile-friendly websites?
- Do they offer ongoing content support?
- What kinds of resources can they share to help you organize services or plan for website updates?
You’ll be surprised how different website designs are for businesses with very similar services. A good web designer will be focused on creating a custom design to meet your business’ individual needs rather than plugging your photos and business information into a template. A solid designer will ask questions about how to organize your services and help you think about updates for changes in staff, seasonal changes or new services. A website shouldn’t become outdated after a couple of years because the design should be built to grow and change along with your business.
