How To Develop A Small Business Website

How to Develop a Small Business Website

Even for businesses that earn most of their revenues offline, having a well-developed website can be the difference between attracting hundreds of new customers per month, or being one of the many start-up companies that fails to get off the ground.

What are the ‘golden rules’ of web design and development that you should follow in order to maximize your business potential?

Give Everything Meaning

A simple starting point for website should be to have ‘as much as you need, but no more than is necessary.’ That means if five pages are enough to tell a potential customer everything they need to know, then build five pages of content.

It is a common feature of businesses that they get lost in what their competitors are doing, or see that a successful company has a massive website, so they need the same.

Stick to what you need at this stage, cut any ‘fat’ from your site and ensure that all content is relevant and of high quality, rather than just existing for the sake of it.

Keep It Clean

Naturally you aren’t going to contain expletives or other dodgy content, but that isn’t what we are talking about here.

How many business websites do you see that have too much going on, from flashing text, to scrolling banners, to written copy placed over the top of images?

Avoid your site comprising any of these elements, think slick, polished, and decisive rather than a hullabaloo of movement that will distract and ultimately alienate any site visitors.

Take It Easy

Continuing from keeping it clean, the easier your website is on the eye of the reader, and the easier to navigate, the better chances of it being a success.

This means that complicated websites that require a browser to click through numerous links before finding a call to action page are a no-go.

As a basic point ensure that things such as contact details and social sharing buttons are included near the top of every page so that a browser is always viewing them. Avoid splash pages, gated content, and anything else that will demean the user experience, too.Every page should have a menu and a means of returning to the homepage.

Continually Audit

Businesses commonly shoot themselves in the foot by taking an ‘it’s done now, we can move on’ attitude to their web development.

When you understand that web development is never ‘done,’ and that continuous audits of everything on your site, from loading times, to social buttons, to links to other external sites, are necessary to ensure your website remains in the best possible condition, and is a valuable tool befitting of your business.

This article is a guest post written by Robert, a writer providing quality content on technology. Robert also provides articles that give advice to businesses from what managed VPS hosting plan they should get to ways they should design their company website.