Who doesn’t want to own the coolest website around? You love your small business and therefore you believe that your website should be freakin’ awesome. The truth though, your website is not for you.
Just because your favorite color is purple does not mean that your website should have purple font. To be frank, our biggest problem with clients is that they want their personality reflected in their website. To those of you who believe that purple font serves you best, STOP IT! Unless your business *sells* purple font.
While you own the website for your small business, know that it is actually for your potential client. Your website is for those who may hand you money. Considering that, we should always do what we can to make our clients lives easier, make the website easy for them to use. Here are a few reminders on what matters when it comes to website design:
1: Do they know what you offer?
There is nothing worse than going to a website not knowing why I am there. Have you ever done a Google search, to only end up on a website that does not have a clear message? If you sell lawn service make it clear that you sell lawn service. Your website is not a place to be cute or clever. Your website is a place for your new client to understand your services and make a decision as to whether or not they want to call you.
2: Make it easy to find your contact information.
People do not want to work too hard to find your contact information. It is generally best to put your contact information at the top of your website. It is our advice to put your contact information at the top area of your website and again in the footer. This is where people are accustomed to finding website contact info, so why make it harder for them?
3: Make your website clean.
No, I am not talking about language here, although I would recommend that you keep that clean too. Do not jam the web pages with too many words or too many pictures. Images are wonderful but there should be plenty of white space around them. Also, keep the number of “call-to-actions” to a minimum. If you give a person too many choices, they are more likely to make no choice at all.
Analyst firm BIA/Kelsey has projected that by 2015 there will be more local >searches coming from smartphones than PCs in the US.
4: Invest in your images.
When picking images for your website it is critical to pick high resolution images. If the image has a lot of activity on it, then make the image small. It is possible that an image will look wonderful on a desktop and terrible on a phone. Considering that most [web search is mobile] these days, it is important to consider the look of a site on a mobile devices as well.
5: Every page is a landing page
Not all web visitors come in thru the front door. In other words there was a time when people would almost always start on your homepage and find their way from there. These days, people may first land on a blog post, a contact page or any other page. Considering this new paradigm in web search you need to consider what each page on your site has to offer. You want to make the nav clear, a footer that has at least the basics and your chosen call to action easily accessible.
Do you agree that your website is not for you? What tips would you offer to make the web search experience easier for web visitors?