Forbes is a great website to follow. The site has great insight for business owners, managers, and marketers. Often, the articles cover the mistakes people can make in business. Today, I read an article about the Top 7 Web Design Mistakes Small Businesses Make. There is some good insight into the design process. It’s worth a few minutes to see if you’re making the same mistakes. The post also inspired me to write about something similar, but I would like to put the positive spin on the idea of small business website design.
7 Correct Website Design Choices Small Businesses Make
Hopefully these choices are ones you have made in the past with your site designs. If you’re currently looking to improve your website with an update be sure to include these considerations throughout the process. It should help create a great result that reflects well on you and your business.
1. Considering What’s Best for Business
The customer is important, but you need to focus on what’s best for your business as well. Since you’ve had a successful small business up to this point you’ve probably already realized this fact. When working with a designer on your new site, be sure to consider what’s best for your business. The great thing about websites is you can kind of control how visitors navigate. Focus on what is best for the customer, but also what is best for the business. For example, some visitors love navigating to your blog posts, but are blog post excerpts right for your home page? Blog posts are great entry points to a website, but your ultimate goal is to get contacts and inquiries from your site. Focus on the elements that get those actions from visitors.
2. Focus on Three Key Website Goals
It’s easy to get caught up in all the things your website can offer. You want to put a bunch of information everywhere on the site and try to cram things all over the home page. While it’s appealing it is probably best to focus on the three main aspects of your business that really sell your products and services to your customer. Make sure people know what you do the moment they arrive on the home page.
3. Offering the Correct Calls to Action
Expanding on number two with this one. The homepage and other pages on the site focus on the important calls to action. Consider what you want the customer to do when they read through each of your pages. The homepage might be too early in the process to ask them to contact you. Instead, it might make sense to direct them to your services page.
4. Choosing a Designer Based on Style and Personality
Price is important when considering a designer, but I feel that style and personality is more important. You want the people working on your site to have a complementary style and personality to your business.
5. Coinciding Blog Strategy
If you’re thinking about a blog and content strategy for your new site then you’re on the right track. Your site will need to attract potential customers via search, social and word of mouth. An ongoing blog and content strategy can help contribute to this customer acquisition method.
6. Ask for Limited Feedback
If you’re keeping your team to a limited number of participants then you’re doing something right. When too many people are involved in the design process things will slow down and the end result will be satisfying to no one. Pick a few people and trust their judgment on all designs.
7. Let the Designer Have Freedom
The business owners that allow the designer to design seem to come out with the most satisfying results. Let your designer have the freedom to try new things and really find the heart of your business and its new website. Don’t micromanage. Allow for freedom, but give feedback to let keep them still focused on achieving a great site that benefits your business.
About the Author: Dayne Shuda
Dayne Shuda is a content strategist and blogger. He is the founder of Ghost Blog Writers. Website: http://www.dayneshuda.com Twitter: @DayneShuda
