5 Tips For Small Businesses Considering a New Website
Small business web design is a different breed from enterprise level, or corporate web design, but most design companies do not make a differentiation. Needs are different, budgets are different and goals are different. We thought we would share a list of steps we take when we start a project and landmines to avoid.
1. Decide what you want the site to do:
Too many websites decide they need a site before they decide why. One of the first things we do when we talk to a prospective client is ask them what they want the site to do. Is it an online brochure? Are you trying to sell things online? Are you trying to generate leads? These are three completely different sites.
2. Do you need a custom site or does a platform make sense:
There are many good reasons for businesses to build a website completely from scratch, however this can be cost prohibitive for many small businesses. Depending on your needs it may make more sense to build on a platform, such as WordPress, that allows you to build and edit the site in a very easy, inexpensive way. And with all the widgets and plugins out there these sites can be pretty powerful. Our company site is built on the WordPress platform and it works for us.
3. Don’t overuse Flash or other image based platforms:
Flash is a great program, however text in images is basically invisible to Search Engines,which will hamper any type of an optimization campaign. Get text out of images on your page. A good rule of thumb is that if you can copy and paste the the text on your screen the Search Engines can crawl and index the information.
4. Decide all pages and write the content before you start:
Before you start building a site write the full site design including all the pages and sub pages. Think about how you want the consumer to interact with your page and how you want visitors to travel through your site. Is a blog appropriate? They are great for Search Engine Campaigns, but if you don’t update them they make your business look lazy or closed. Write all the content for the pages before you start, it makes the process easier and quicker. You can always change it later.
5. Once you build test everything and test often:
Once your site is online test everything. Test all the links, your contact form, and reproof the pages. Things can break. Sometimes a “small” change you think made can have cascading effects over the page. Keep an eye on everything on the site, because a broken site can reflect poorly on your business.
Once your site is up and working, consider different marketing techniques. Consider a Pay Per Click Campaign or a link building strategy. Start a campaign to collect email addresses. Keep your blog up to date, and talk to your customers. Ask them what they think, how the site works for them, and watch your results. Install an Analytics program like Google Analytics to keep track of how visitors interact with the site and check them often. Make changes based on the results. While you don’t want to make wholesale changes often, make small fixes and tweaks. Remember, your website is often the first look visitors get at your business, and you don’t often get a second chance at a first impression.