9 Web Design Best Practices For Small Businesses

9 Web Design Best Practices For Small Businesses

The main objective of your business website is to ensure that your customers find what they’re looking for, quickly and easily. Check out our top recommended best practices for your website, all engineered to increase conversions and ultimately, the site ROI.

Ensure Effortless Navigation

As long as your site’s navigation is effortless and predictable, your prospects won’t get frustrated. A frustrated prospect is a potential customer lost to you. So, try to follow standard guidelines and place navigational links and menu items where people expect to find them

Focus on Quality Content

You may be told that posting often and maintaining a high posting frequency keeps you high on the search engines. This is not a writ-on-stone rule; what’s important is quality content, content that offers some value-add to readers. Focus on high-quality content, even if you publish less often.

Use Videos

Whether you create instructional, testimonial, product demo videos or videos introducing your team and company, use videos to attract and impress your visitors. Your videos don’t have to be professional, as long as they’re watchable and enjoyable.

Enable A Search Feature

A friendly search feature with advanced search options and the facility to sort and filter search results is pure gold. A great search feature, such as the one on Amazon.com can up your conversions by as much as 50%.

Allow Easy Contact

Make sure your prospects find it easy to get in touch with you. Place your phone number(s) and email Ids in all web pages, in your footer, sidebar or header. The easier you make it for people to get hold of your number, the greater your customers’ confidence in you.

Have Several CTAs

Make sure your prospects are clear as to what you want them to you. Not only should your CTA be clear and prominent, it’s necessary that you repeat the same CTA in multiple places. Sometimes people can miss out on CTAs while browsing, unless they’re everywhere and therefore hard to miss.

Establish Credibility

You don’t have to bribe your prospects with freebies to convert them. Establish a solid credibility locally, and let your site reflect your honesty and sincerity. Publish genuine customer testimonials and reviews. Put up trust symbols such as VeriSign and incorporate a friendly return policy.

Ensure Visual Appeal

Do make your site a little modern and visually appealing. Avoid negative backgrounds, and use readable and professional fonts. Use a professional web design company who’s designed sites for other businesses in your industry.

Ensure Top Page Load Speed

One sure-fire way of losing any prospect is to load your site with too many elements. Cut back on images, unnecessary graphic elements in your design and please avoid Flash. Check how fast your pages load on varying bandwidths – your site should load fast on the least bandwidth to be a winner.