Do you know what the vital cogs to a first business website are?
Getting a new business off the ground can be time consuming and require a lot of hard work. However, using this as an excuse to delay setting up a website is a big mistake. A lot of newly-formed small businesseschoose to start an internet presence with social media however, today’s tech savvy customers expect any social presence to be backed up by a professionally-presented website with a proper domain name.
While it may seem a daunting task to build your own first business website, creating a website that follows the below criteria is a lot easier than it used to be and is worth the small investment of time and effort required. Not only will this help to attract visitors, but it will also add a certain degree of credibility to your business and help increase your visibility over your competitors something which is particularly important with the ever-increasing numbers of customers using the internet to find and purchase products and services.
Mobile first
With mobile becoming increasingly popular, creating a first business website which is mobile friendly is no longer an option, it’s a necessity. The latest research from Google tells us that 82 per cent of smartphone users use their phone to search the internet when looking for a local business. As a result, it’s important to use a fully responsive layout that adapts to different screen sizes when creating your website. This will make your website much easier to view across different mobile devices with varying screen sizes.
Encourage contact
There is nothing more irritating than visiting a website to find the contact details buried at the bottom of a page several clicks away. To make sure visitors who arrive on the homepage of your first business website can find contact details easily, put them at the top of the page. don’t make it hard for potential customers to locate information on your website this is a sure way to lose both attention and business.
Get to the point
No one wants to wait on your homepage while your friendly welcome message loads. The front page of a website only displays a limited amount of content so skip the salutations and make sure the content appeals to potential customers. This will increase the likelihood that users will click on further pages.
Speed is king
With super fast broadband and 4G now readily available we are conditioned to fast browsing, which means your customers won’t wait for slow pages to load. As images are the primary reason for slow loading pages, compress images so they are smaller in size. This will help your website run quicker and be much more user friendly whether viewing on a desktop or mobile device.
Call to action
Once your visitor has arrived at your first business website, you need to make very clear what you expect them to do. To ensure this is clear, have a clear call to action at the top of the page. Whether you want people to visit, call, tweet, email or purchase there and then, make it easy for them to take that next step.
Gordon Plant is VP of product at BaseKit.
