
Research is your friend
In-depth research is going to be invaluable as you embark on crafting a beautiful and easy-to-navigate website. Visiting your competitors is a good starting point. Is their website visually appealing? What is the user experience like? What is missing? Make a list of things you think they do well and areas, which you would improve for your own site. Take inspiration from market leaders as well. Retailers and service providers from Apple through to Amazon, British Gas and of course GoDaddy use simple designs and clear signposting to make navigation effortless.Nail the logo
Once you’ve decided on your name and secured your domain name, you need to turn your attention to developing a logo that reflects the brand. But what separates a good logo from a great one? Coca-Cola, Facebook, Nike, McDonald’s and Twitter are all instantly recognisable because their logos are simple and versatile. When launching a small business, you may not have the budget to hire a professional designer. Fear not, think of this as an opportunity to get your creative juices flowing. Sketch out a few ideas and experiment with different styles. Spell out the name of your organisation. Does lower or upper case look better? What about italics? Or does the logo look great without text? For in-depth help to create your own logo visit the GoDaddy Garage for more tips.Leverage the power of typefaces and templates
Fancy typefaces are an obvious no no. But this doesn’t mean that you have to settle for the bog standard Times New Roman font. Airbnb and Spotify both use Circular, the BBC deploys Helvetica and Amazon puts its trust in Arial. Just remember that the font should be clear, easy to read and scale to different sizes. A black font on a white background is a great starting point, but don’t be afraid to experiment with colour palettes. Choosing your template is another critical decision. If you’re running a restaurant business, a hero image with a ‘book a table’ or ‘view menu’ call to action on the homepage is perhaps the most effective option to help you navigate and capture customers. If you’re selling a variety of consumer goods, you’re more likely to need a busier front page to give the customer insight into your scope of offerings. There are plenty of templates available on the market that can be customised to suit your business requirements. GoDaddy’s Website Builder offers really easy drag-and-drop capabilities and there is WordPress integration if you want to take personalisation to the next level.Get in the fast lane
The aim is to have your website pages load faster than a visitor can say Usain Bolt. If your website takes over two seconds to load, that potential customer may not decide to wait. Painfully slow loading times can also affect your Google ranking, which could mean the difference between getting a coveted first-page slot or being banished to depths of page four. Make sure that your pages have images that are optimised for use on the web, and on a variety of devices, and think twice before using data hungry animations or overloading your site with too many plugins. Once you’re up and running, you can use a variety of tools to test your website and make sure it’s running as efficiently as possible.Show and tell
Using high-quality images helps to radiate a professional vibe. Whether you’re selling computers, cakes or bicycle tours, your customers need to see exactly what you’re offering. Your images should look appealing and desirable enough to your website visitors to get them to click through to purchase, make a reservation or any other desired action.Be contactable
‘About us’, ‘Contact us’ and ‘Follow us’ may sound like simple sections but they go a long way towards establishing the legitimacy of your business. If you’re sourcing ethical goods, tell the customers by having a ‘Learn about our suppliers’ page, which can give you more brownie points. Remember, ‘Troubleshooting’, ‘FAQ’ and ‘Returns’ sections are important as these give customers confidence that you will have their back should anything go wrong.Don?t have a sell-by date
Have you ever come across a website or even social media profile where the last news update was from 2014? Even if the rest of your website is immaculate, this kind of oversight can be awkward. It?s therefore imperative that you spend time planning your digital content and make a decision about whether you want to have a regular stream of fresh content or prefer a low-maintenance evergreen approach. While you will need to update any kind of digital content every-now and then, your website, is a bit like an orchard that needs maintaining. It is up to you to determine when and how often it needs pruning. How to create a culture of small business transparencySign up to our newsletter to get the latest from Business Advice.