The Ultimate Cheat Sheet for a Good Small Business Website

In a crowded online space, small business owners need to ensure their website can keep up with the competition. Whether you’re just getting started or want to help your site stand apart from the crowd, we’ve got you covered with our ultimate website cheat sheet.

Design
● Keep it clean. Your website might look fancy, but if it lacks clarity, visitors won’t be able to navigate it easily. Keep your site design clean and simple, with well-labeled pages and an organized layout. If you want to amp up the decor, contact a professional website designer for help creating a custom site design.

● Make it mobile. Mobile used to be just a nice-to-have. Today, it’s a requirement. More than 50 percent of people browsing the web are doing so on their devices. In some industries, that number is higher than 75 percent — and rising. Make sure your website looks good on tablets and phones. If you’re not sure about how to do this, reach out to us.

Content
● Be blunt. What does your business do? What services or products does it provide? You can talk all you want about a no-nonsense work ethic or excellent customer reviews, but site visitors want to know exactly what you can offer them, plain and simple. Create an “About” page for your business, and feel free to include its history and awards, too. If you have examples of past work (e.g., before and after images for a lawn care service, online product catalogs, news releases of your firm’s architectural designs), be sure to give them their own tab/page.

● Don’t write a novel. You’re going to want about 300 to 500 words on each page of your site. Anything longer will lose your reader’s interest, but anything shorter may not fully encapsulate your information and is bad for SEO. If a client wants more info, direct them to your contact page.

● Include images. Visuals are vital! A wordy website might contain a lot of valuable information, but it won’t be eye-catching. If you can afford it, hire a professional to take some photos of your business, services, or products; studies show real images of your team or business, rather than stock photography, increases your conversion rate.

● Check out seven other things your website should contain.

Details
● List your contact information clearly on the front. Many people visit a site just to get your phone number, email address, or location. Make sure people can find this without clicking all over the place.

● Also, include contact information on every page. Your business’s address, phone number, and/or email should be in the header or footer of every page. You want clients to be able to easily find your contact information no matter where they navigate to on your site. However, be careful when listing your email address. Bots can crawl websites looking for the @ symbol, which can lead to lots of spam mail. Talk to your web professional about listing your address differently or use a form for customers to fill out. The “Contact” page of your website should also include a form.

● Link your social media. It can sometimes be tricky to find small businesses’ accounts on social media, so it’s important to provide links on your website. Make sure links to your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other active platforms are easy to find (it can be helpful to include them in the header or footer near your contact information).

● Know your login info. And not just for your website, but also for your domain registration and hosting. Write it down on a physical piece of paper - if your computer crashes (or your brain forgets), that paper will be your lifesaver! If the words “domain registration” and “hosting” don’t ring a bell, read our cheat sheet on those here.

For any of your web design questions, we’re here to help. Contact us!