5 Easy Tips to Create an Effective Website for Small Businesses

March 25, 2010

Tags: effective website, Tips, web design

If you’re a small business owner then chances are your expertise is your business, not creating websites. And yet, the task of creating a site can be daunting. Here’s a few basic tips that we use when creating your site design and content.

Focus on your customers problems and how you solve those problems

Throughout the creation of your site, always ask yourself the question, “How is my website helping answer my customers’ problems and concerns?” This question is important because most web designers that you work with will create an informational brochure depicting your business. This is bad because web visitors are culling through many, many websites and will decide in a few seconds if your website will solve their problems. If your website talks only about you and your products and services, it will probably not peak the interest of most visitors. Instead, if your site demonstrates that you are keenly aware of your customers and their problems and show how your products and services uniquely answer those problems, you’ll be in a much better position. Here’s an example (you can probably tell I’m a dog owner):

BAD:
Welcome to the XYZ Pet Vacuum Corp website! We have been in business for 25 years and are the leading manufacturer of pet vacuums. Our Model T8 Pet Vacuum is excellent at removing dog hair and dirt from furniture.

BETTER:
Discover an easy way to eliminate dog hair and paw prints from your couch. The Model T8 Pet Vacuum is guaranteed to quickly remove dog hair from deep creases your couch. With the T8 your couch (and your clothes!) will last longer and stay cleaner.

See the difference? One is “me” focused and the other is “customer” focused. People care about their problems and lives not about your business. So focus on them and not on you and you’ll win more business from your website.
Make contact info visible

Make sure its very easy for a customer to contact you. At a very minimum that should be by phone. Preferably also by email. For bonus points, contact form, comments, newsletter signup, Facebook, and Twitter. Phone and email should be in prime real estate, usually at the top right of the page. And put the contact info on all pages not just your home page.
Make use of bold headers with detailed content between

As mentioned above, your visitors will scan your web page quickly to determine if it meets their needs. Help them absorb your message quickly. To do this, make use of headers to break up content and ideas. This article is an example of this point. Chances are good that before reading this sentence you skimmed the article and one or more of the tips where are bolded and in larger font. You then went back and read the details of a point that interested you most. And you may not have read the points in order. Help your visitors get to what most interests them as quickly as possible. They will thank you with their business.
Make the font easy to read

Again, make reading your material easier. Choose a slightly larger font size. Use a font style that is sans-serif which means it is not a stylized, complicated font. Also try and use dark gray or black font color.
Don’t clutter the page or let it get distracting

Keep your pages to the point and let your readers’ eye easily absorb information from your headers, text and pertinent images. Be judicious with those images. Make sure they are to the point and don’t overly distract the eye. Charts and graphs are good. Images of happy, smiling people that look like they are having the best time of their life, generally, just waste good real estate. No body really buys those pictures.

That’s about it. Incorporate these 5 points and you should be making good progress towards and effective website. Feel free to contact us with questions or for more help.