Your business needs to have an effective online presence. You want it to look impressive and be effective to raise your profile above your competitors. You want it at an affordable cost without compromising on quality. These are some insider views to think about when building your website.
Quality:
There is one famous Chinese saying, “Cheat me in price, but not in the quality of the product I am buying”. You should understand that if you compromise your website, you will compromise your business popularity.
Usability:
Now there are 5 major Internet browsers ranging between 3% and 40% in market share. The website you design, must work well on all browsers. You may have had a marvelous website designed to promote your small business or a start-up but if the website doesn’t work, then there is a problem.
Be Unique:
There is a lot of competition among small businesses. Make sure that your site has a unique web design. You can copy anyone’s design and use it as your own but that is not a professional attitude. The site is to provide information about your product or services. Hence, it should be easy to use and to navigate because visitors won’t enjoy spending a lot of time learning about the functionality of your site.
Purpose:
Every business website should have a goal and every page on the website should have a purpose. It can be extremely frustrating for the visitors if they can’t find the information they want. If it is a website for a restaurant, it should have things like menu, directions or pictures of the cuisine.
Provide:
Contact Information. Provide as much contact information as possible on the website on every page. It is important to have an email address associated with the websites let it be known your are a professionally established business and not a fraud.
Contact/Subscribe Forms:
As a small business or a start-up, you should want to gather as much information about the visitors as possible (but not too much). Most people don’t want to share information about themselves or like to spend a lot of time filling out a long form. So, the forms should be constructed well to achieve their goal (which should be to grow your e-newsletter database for direct marketing).
These are some general guidelines to help you get started with a new website or when analyzing your own. Sign up for our newsletter to receive a full checklist for your website must-haves.
