When you decide to create a website for your business, the first thing you want to do is take a step back and consider this: “Why will my potential customers stop (and shop) here, when there are millions of other websites out there, selling the same thing or offering the same service?“. It’s a hard question to answer, I know. But with these 5 tips on building an amazing business website, you can start on the right track.
Did you know that on average, a person spends 5 to 8 seconds deciding if your websites is worth it or not? Such a short time to capture the attention of your visitors, to make them feel they are in the right place and that the search for whatever they need is over.
In order to captivate their attention you have to start with a great design, but also take into account things like usability, the way the design shows on different devices, not to mention actually having the information google is recommending you for.
So, to help you out, here is my list of tips on how to start building a great business website:
- Start thinking responsive – responsive, responsive, responsive. It’s a word you’ve heard me talk about since 2012. But the years have gone by, and some business owners still think it’s ok to start building websites that will not take into account users with mobile phones or tablets. Thinking and creating responsive layouts will not only give your customers and visitors a great experience, but it will also help you highlight specific elements, important for each of the displays. And don’t forget, google is serving more and more websites with responsive abilities on mobile and tablet searches.
- Readability – fonts are a very important part of any website. They help you understand the language, they help put things in perspective. The way your pages display text is a key factor when you want the information to be understood perfectly. Weird spaces or no spaces at all between lines will not help your cause at all. Consider the following:
- Use easy to read typography and fonts
- Make your texts short and sweet (average readers only read 30% of text on web pages)
- Implement bullet points and lists
- Ensure that there is sufficient spacing between paragraphs and sentences
- Include proper headings
- Use a call to action and make sure that your message is conveyed clearly
- Don’t overdo-it with the ads – if you want to promote offers from other companies, placing banners everywhere can sound like a good idea, but think about what your users would want to see. If ads are the only way you can make money out of your website, you may want to find place for them that will not obscure in any way the information your visitors are looking for.
- CTA only when needed – you may want to prompt people into buying or engaging with your website, but adding to many call to actions can create clutter. The best way to limit that is to test and use heat maps in order to get an idea of the most used CTAs on the page.
- Hire a consultant – here is the tricky part. If you decide to create a business website on your own, your knowledge on the matter could feature serious gaps. And at the end of the day, you will end up with a less than perfect result.
My biggest recommendation to you is to talk with a consultant and find out more on what your website will need. If by the end of that talk you think you might be in over your head, outsourcing the build can be godsend. Just imagine how much time you can actually spend on growing the business, having meetings and signing contracts.
Hope my list of 5 tips helped. And if you are in need of a consultant, just give me a call ????
