5 Website Design Tips for Small Businesses
A website is an essential tool for small businesses looking to grow their business online. In this article, we’ll show you five tips on how to design a great website for your business.
StoryBrand Messaging & Clear Call to Action
Good web design starts with your homepage. The homepage of your website should have relatable language and a very clear call to action. One of the best ways to achieve this is through Storybrand Messaging. Storybrand messaging sets your customer as the hero of their story who is on their journey to solving their own problem when they meet a guide (your business) who offers them a solution to a problem that they were in the process of finding an answer to. This guide provides them with a clear 3 step process and a vision of what winning looks like. Moreover the web design should create a clear funnel with multiple call to action buttons so that the customer can convert when they are ready.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Web design coupled with good SEO sets a solid foundation for being found by your ideal customers. After you’ve written clear and accurate copy for your homepage, it’s essential to go back through that copy and include high ranking keywords that your domain has the opportunity to rank for. When choosing the keywords be sure to include phrases that your ideal customers would use when they are performing a search for a company like yours. After you have included these keywords and keyphrases in your copy, ensure that they also appear in your title, tags and meta descriptions as well as your optimized url. This would be a good time to review your menu structure to ensure that it is clear and no page is left behind. We also recommend using schemas for your top pages or the pages on your menu. Including all of these SEO elements will ensure that your website design has a good foundation.
User Experience (UX) Design
Website design that provides a good user experience means that you know how your customer interacts with your website and you have your website design optimized so that they can quickly find the answers they are looking for. A good place to start is using heatmaps on your site. Heatmaps will tell you where your customers go on your website by “heating up in red” the most visited spots trailing off to blue with the least visited spots. This will give you an indication of which areas visitors are studying on your page and alert you to highlight those areas. In addition we also recommend studying page journeys and drop offs. This means that you understand which page customers land on first, which page they go to next, what page they drop off on, etc. Using these analytics from Google Analytics combined with heatmaps will give you a better understanding of how users interact with your site so you can optimize your website design in a manner that appeals to them.
Website Design - Photos, Graphics, Videos and Infographics
Nothing evokes emotions quite like photos, videos and graphics do. If you’re like most savvy business leaders, you know that customers actually purchase on emotion and the way a product or service makes them feel beyond what it can do for them. In light of that, it is essential to thread quality photos, graphics, videos and infographics throughout your website design. They should be on brand, follow the set brand standards for graphic and logo design and bring out the feeling that customers are wanting to experience. Be sure to also include quality video (with clip markup and properly cached for speed) as well as infographics that are high with good alt text that even others can use and you can get quality backlinks (other domains linking to yours) for.
Mobile Website Design
Website design that also functions well on mobile is essential. Customers are converting more and more directly on their mobile devices. Ensure that your website design also functions well on mobile. If you use WordPress for design, it’s easy to toggle over to mobile to see how your design interacts there. We also recommend using Google Search Console to detect any mobile errors such as clickable elements too close together or any design trailing off the frame.
Website design is integral to a successful website. Remember to use these 5 tips so that your design not only looks good but is set up to convert well for you
