Designing a Small Business Website
Introduction
We cannot stress enough how important it is for a business to have a professional looking website. Therefore, if you are going to build the website yourself, we have provided some tips on how to make an effective small business website.
For your website to be effective, it must show quality: a customer’s first impression of your business will reflect the quality of the website. Arguably, if you don’t have anybody in the business that has true professional web design skills, it may be beneficial to outsource the design and management of the website.
You may be thinking that you do not have the funds to outsource but by searching around, you will find that there will be a company that can cater for your needs and your budget. However, you should also consider how a professional looking website will stimulate sales further than a ‘home made’ web site and consequently the extra revenue will allow you to afford the on-going outsourcing.
Our Outsourcing in Small Business article will give you more information about the benefits of outsourcing:
Planning
Before you even turn on your computer, you should plan out your website on paper. This is very important to determine the layout of the website and how all pages will link together.
Start with the homepage and then work your way through the website. If your website h as a small number of pages, say 1 – 20, you could make a model of the site using pieces of paper laid out on the floor and use string to show links between pages.
If your website has more pages than this, plan the layout on a large piece of paper (i.e. A1 size if possible) drawing small boxes to represent the pages (don’t forget to label/name them). You can then draw lines to represent the linking system.
The Home Page
The home page will be your main shop window so it is important not to crowd the page with small text and flashing banner ads. Customers should be able to get a feel for the website layout and content by looking at the home page. The links should clearly define each area of the site and give enough description so that customers are confident that they are clicking through to the desired page: this should be common throughout the entire website.
You should clearly display your Designing a Business Logo on the page in an un-intrusive position (i.e. the top-left corner).
Dress your home page as you would a shop window – give them a reason to come into the shop (your website in this case).
Important Pages
You should create a ‘contact’ page that is clearly linked from all pages – the home page in particular. The contact page should have your business contacts i.e. phone number, address, contact name, etc. Visit our contact page to get more of an idea.
You should also create a page that details the background and nature of your company – commonly called ‘About Us’. This page should again be linked from all pages on the site, the home page being the most important. Some businesses combine their ‘contact’ and ‘about us’ pages, just like we at BizHelp24 have done.
Other pages that are important include a ‘terms & conditions’ or a ‘terms of use’ page. This will detail your policy for people using the website and ‘when’ and ‘if’ people can reproduce your material (with set procedures, rules, etc).
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