Business Website Design

Business website design is your face to your audience. It is intended to build the reputation of your business as well as capture and influence your buyers.   It’s a lost opportunity for your business to use it just like a business card or brochureware and to not spend the time, effort and resources to make it a professional marketing tool.

HERE ARE 7 THINGS TO AVOID WITH YOUR BUSINESS WEBSITE DESIGN  

Poor Quality Images

It’s great you have images of your product, place and people but if the lighting is poor, a bad angle or the resolutions isn’t right, it’s time to invest in a professional photographer. Purchasing quality images may be a better option, although less original and you’ll need to make sure you have the usage rights.  Another popular option is having animated images created to tell your story.

Long Loading Times

If it takes more than 5 seconds to load your website when someone clicks on it or enters it into Google you not only lose the interest of the person searching for your type of business but also Google will penalize you..  Usually, long loading time is because your images take up too much memory.   Reducing their memory size will increase your loading time.  Ask your web designer or developer to check the size of your images.

Typos

Nothing says I am unprofessional like typos.  We all have encountered typos when we are sure we have proofread the content a thousand times.  Having an editor review your content is priceless.

Too Much or Too Little Copy

Yes, your site can suffer from both.  Too little and you lose out on grabbing the interest of your buyer, too much and you can overwhelm them.   A general rule is to figure out the information needs of your customer.  Generally, business websites use copy, illustrations and icons to help the visitor skim through the pages.  Read more buttons offer the visitor more in-depth information than what is provided on the page.  Also using larger font size and colours will make key points stand out.

Poor Design

The topic of website design can take-up a whole library of books.  Design is critical to the whole user experience.  I common see small businesses choosing platforms like Wix website builder.  It’s a starting point, but find businesses grow out of these sites as their reputation and brand become more important.  They seek more customization and quality design, that are better suited to a professional business.  Furthermore they grow to learn the importance of attracting traffic through search engine optimization and social media marketing.

Making it Hard to Do Business With You

When I visit a site and I have to figure out what they do and how to contact them I think they really don’t want my business.  Making it easy for me to get to know them, what they offer and how to reach them tells me the know their business and their customers.

Not Explaining Why You Are Different

One last thing I recommend you avoid in building a small business website and it’s really my personal pet peeve of mine is seeing on the home page “Welcome to My Website”.  I realize many themes add that in, but it takes up the opportunity to explain who you are, what your value proposition is and why they should stay on your site.   A real missed opportunity.