Andy Morley

SEO Specialist & Web Designer

6 Small Business Website Design Tips

When starting a business, whether big or small, you must set up a professional business website. A business website is an essential driver towards success. However, it may feel intimidating for small business owners to establish a website, especially if they haven’t handled one before.

As a small business owner, it is important to keep in mind that the creation of a business website is critical in terms of driving relevant and more meaningful traffic to your business while generating more leads. At the same time, it helps in steering clear of problems different users might encounter while navigating the platform.

Therefore, it is paramount for small business owners to create business websites and this post outlines some of the best website design tips to help your small business to get started. Read on to learn more about website design and 6 easy tips to get you started.

1. Secure your business a good domain name

Otherwise referred to as the website address, your domain name is essentially the entry point to your website. Therefore, you should ensure that your domain name creates a great impression for usability and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) purposes.

You can use any of the following simple tips to come up with an optimal domain name:

  • Ensure that you keep the name as short as possible: Remember, the shorter the domain name, the easier it would be for users to remember and also correctly type it.
  • Keep the spellings easy: You should not overly complicate the spellings. Therefore, ensure that you steer clear of slang, extremely obscure, or made-up words.
  • Avoid using hyphens and numbers: Using these could make it challenging for users to remember. Furthermore, they are less memorable and elegant as compared to domain names with words only. Sometimes users may even misunderstand the domain name when they vocalise it.
  • Utilise proper domain extension: If you can, just make your website a .com domain name instead of going for .co or .net unless you deem it appropriate to use other extensions as .or, .edu, or .gov.
  • Keep your address broad to give room for future growth: When you keep your name broad like Amazon.com, you can cover a lot of things inside the website as opposed to using a name like BooksOnline.com, which limits the site’s services.
  • Ensure that pricing is right: You should research the price ranges to find out whether you can buy your desired address at a reasonable price because you will discover most domain names are taken and you might have to buy one from its current owner.
  • Keep the URL SEO-friendly

2. Optimise your business website to make it mobile-friendly

Keeping in mind the recent announcement by Google concerning the mobile-first index, it is almost suicidal for any small business website mobile responsive. What this essentially means is how your website can adapt itself and rearrange its contents to make everything viewable from different mobile devices.

However, you should not get too comfortable because this alone does not make the business website mobile-friendly. Therefore, you have to ensure that your business’s website can offer an excellent user experience across different devices.

3. Ensure that you explicitly display the description of your business

Any small business or startup should target to ensure that the business is known, and the best way to do this is by clearly displaying the business description. This ensures that your customers don’t feel confused anytime they land on your website.

The best way to do this is by putting a banner on the homepage and other subsequent banners to visually describe your business and the services you offer. At the same time, you should include an introductory text almost at the top of your homepage.

Moreover, ensure that your header and footer navigation menus include the ‘About Us’ page links so that your site visitors can easily click on them to get to know more about your business at an in-depth level.

4. Establish the best content management system

A CMS (Content Management System) is an ideal program for creating and managing digital content. If you have a good CMS, it will be relatively easy for you to maintain your website without much technical know-how.

Therefore, ensure that you select a CMS that is tailored to meet your business needs, including the different systems employed and the purposes intended for while ensuring that it remains user-friendly and within your budget. Some of the systems you could consider include:

  • WordPress
  • Drupal
  • Joomla!
  • Squarespace
  • Wix

5. Select an ideal e-commerce platform

If your business looks to sell goods or/and services via the platform, you will have to choose the right technology for that. If at the moment you aren’t selling anything, it may be imperative that you consider the same because it would be an incredible way to potentially increase your business profits.

Therefore, if it’s in your plans to let your customers financially transact online, you have to pick the best platform for your kind of business. There are many options you could consider like WooCommerce, Shopify, Business Squarespace, and Godaddy Online Store.

6. Ensure that the user interface is interesting, memorable, and engaging

This essentially means that your website’s user interface should be capable of leaving a positive impression while driving positive results. Here are some ideal suggestions that could help:

  • Employ beautiful graphics with easy-to-read fonts
  • Find out how your competitors have optimised their websites and see how best you can capitalise on that
  • Compress your graphics and optimise them to ensure that they load faster. Search engines like Google won’t hesitate on penalising your site’s ranking.
  • Ensure that you are consistent with the brand
  • Keep your design intuitive and the navigation smooth
  • Ensure the published contact information is easily accessible

Summary

It is pretty clear by now that creating a website for your small business may not be that easy at first but with the implementation of these tips, the process will make more sense.

Contact me today if you have any questions via my contact page form or directly on 0758 1073 926.

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