The essential things your business website must include

If you are a business looking to set up your first website, here's some things you should consider.

Design.

It is imperative that the website has a concise, effective design. Unless you have a clear aptitude for design, you should not attempt to design your site on your own,. Many small businesses try to design and build their own website, but not many achieve it successfully. With a poor design you will lose a large amount of customers. Make sure the design is not overcrowded - various companies try to put as much information about their company as they can which results in overloading the visitor. The main aim of the website is to get them to contact you. Additionally, remember a website is not forever as design tastes change and new functionalities are invented. We normally see customers completely overhauling and redesigning their websites every three years or thereabouts.

What do you want your website to do?

To generate leads? If you are in a service orientated business it is likely that you will want your website to generate leads ie get the visitors interest so that they contact you directly and you then turn them into a client. One way you can do this is by offering free downloadable reports in PDF format in exchange for their details. You can then follow up with a phone call or letter to them.

Be an information resource for your customers? It could be that you want your website to be an informative source to your existing clients, including all relevant technical data, product reviews ,online catalogues etc.

Be an online ordering site? You may want your customers to change to online ordering as this undoubtedly saves in personnel costs and other overheads.

There are numerous things that your website can do and you need to think it through carefully when in the planning stage instead of trying to be all things to all people.

Do you want search engine traffic?

Maybe you want to generate new customers through search engines and if so there are many factors you need to pay attention to. Initially, you need to be aware which keywords your site will target. To do this you need to do your keyword research using sites such as www.wordtracker.com, www.goodkeywords.com, and Google's Adwords interface. This will help you get an opinion of what people are looking for in your market and the search volumes, so that you can draw up a short list.

On page optimisation: It will be necessary, using the information generated from the keyword research, to optimise the website for these phrases. A web designer will be more than capable of doing this.

Incoming links: The other critical factor in getting good search engine ranking is the building of incoming links to your website. This should be an ongoing process and you should set aside time each month or delegate it to be someone's responsibility to obtain links to the website.

Website functionality.

Your website should be functional in the following:

Navigation: This must be clear, intuitive and easy to use. Visitors must be able to know how to quickly gain access to the different parts of your website.

Browser compatibility: Your website must work efficiently in all popular browsers, which include Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox.

Clear design and branding: The overall layout design of your site should be a clear, clean design and should promote your company's brand.

Balance: Your website must include the right balance of text - break it up with the use of images, as people do not like reading large blocks of text online.

Communicate clear benefits: Your website must communicate the benefits of using your company - your unique selling proposition. Lots of businesses make the error of telling the visitor all about themselves instead of advising them as to how they can help solve their problems.

Testimonials and client lists: I have often seen many customers bury their gleaming testimonials and client lists away in a corner of their website. If you have good testimonials and impressive client lists then use them throughout your site. Disperse testimonials throughout the main pages as they tend to create an impression, yet no one particularly goes looking for the testimonials page on a website.

Do you have an interesting story to tell? If you have an interesting story to tell about your company - perhaps how it was born, or interesting case studies where you have helped a client, then tell the story. People love stories - they entrance and captivate and can be used effectively as examples of how your business can help them.

If you think through all the factors above, you'll have a more clearer idea of how your website is going to look and operate, and you can then pass this information on to your web designer and you will be more likely to get a finished website that you are happy with and that does what it should - increase your business and add to your bottom line.

Robin Porter is CEO of Arpey Internet, a kent web design company which provides affordable web design for the UK

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The essential things your business website must include
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