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You are here: Home / Technology / 6 Things You Must Address With Your Small Business Website

6 Things You Must Address With Your Small Business Website

October 6, 2014 By Melinda Emerson Leave a Comment

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Smiling Man With Tablet ComputerSince you’re starting a new business, it’s best to have the blog as part of your website.  No matter what style you decide to go with, it is very important to have a branded header graphic on your home page with a tagline that tells people quickly how you can solve their problem. You only have seven seconds before people will move on to another website. Your offering must be clear the moment someone lands on your page.   Here are six things you need to address in your website design.

1.  Your market position. Are you going to be known for selection and delivery? If so, your website must be fast and have a great selection. Your design, in other words, must reflect the qualities you want your customers to associate with your business.

2. Your niche. Are you providing online customized solutions or products for customers based on information collected from surveys and registration data? Your site should allow you to highlight benefits that can only be provided efficiently online. Lets say you target pet owners. You can create a website all about dogs. Your site can take visitors through a personalized analysis based on their specific dog. Or you can develop a niche website that specializes in Beagles.

3.  Your look and feel. Presentation is everything. The design of the website will convey the credibility of the site.  Having a website design that looks bad will give the impression that the company is not technologically advanced or isn’t willing to invest in its appearance. It’s like wearing a badly made suit to a business meeting; you may know what you’re talking about, but your first impression will be a poor one. Visitors to a poorly designed site may question the quality of service your company can provide.

4.  Your navigation. Good websites are easy to use. No one likes a website where you need to search for how to place an order, how to contact the company or how to pay. The link on your pages should all work, be easy to use, fast, and direct. Experiment with how many clicks it takes to get from the opening page of the site to placing an order – the fewer, the better.

5.  Your expertise.The quality of content on your website is important. You should be blogging twice a week to demonstrate your expertise. Your website should indicate who you are, what services or products you offer, your industry focus, and contact information. Take the opportunity to explain what makes your products and services different from your competitors. Use keywords to help your content show up in search engines. Consider having helpful links on your website to third-party sites that provide more industry information.

6.  Your trustworthiness. You want your website to be perceived as trustworthy. Make sure your contact information can be easily found and that it includes a street address and a phone number. Having no contact information or just a post office box may lead visitors to question the legitimacy and quality of your business. Include the name of a contact person on the site. Visitors want to know there’s a real person they can call if they need to return a product. If you are going to build an e commerce site consider joining the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and adding their logo to your site to have additional credibility as an online seller.

Young And Smiling Man With Tablet Computer In Modern Business Bu” courtesy of adamr / www.freedigitalphotos.net

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Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: small business website design

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Melinda F. Emerson, “SmallBizLady” is America’s #1 Small Business Expert. She is an internationally renowned keynote speaker on small business development, social selling, and online marketing strategy. As CEO of Quintessence Group, her Philadelphia-based marketing consulting firm serves Fortune 500 brands that target the small business market. Clients include Amazon, Adobe, Verizon, VISA, Google, FedEx, Chase, American Express, The Hartford, and Pitney Bowes. She also has an online school, www.smallbizladyuniversity.com, that teaches people online marketing and how to start and grow a successful small business and publishes a blog SucceedAsYourOwnBoss.com. Her advice is widely read, reaching more than 3 million entrepreneurs each week online. She hosts The Smallbizchat Podcast and is the bestselling author of Become Your Own Boss in 12 Months, Revised and Expanded, and Fix Your Business, a 90 Day Plan to Get Back Your Life and Reduce Chaos in Your Business.

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