1) Create the right image

The look of your website is very important and must create the right image.  Templates allowing you to build your own website are available but a cheap template site will end up doing greater damage than good in the long run.  Professional designers and developers will provide you with a website design that says “This is a professional organisation, I trust them and I want to do business with them.”

Don’t overdo and clutter your homepage! More importantly, grab customer attention with what you want them to buy in the first few seconds.  If your customers can’t find what they are looking for quickly, they will move onto a competitor’s website.

Most people don’t read websites, they scan them, you can link to more detailed content on separate pages.  Splitting your homepage into chunks will make it easier for customers to find the information they want and assess if you have what they are looking for.

Get your customers to like and trust you.

2) Content

Most successful businesses are customer led in order to be effective, they create products and services in response to customer needs.   

Make your customers your prime focus by understanding what your customers want and then delivering this better than your competition.  It can become tempting to go overbroad and sell everything but try not to, look at Amazon, they started by only selling books.

Your website may be the first point of contact for customers, therefore it is important that it reflects the right image and provides the appropriate information.

The most important factor for a small business website is to provide existing and potential customers with information on:

• What the business does
• The products and services they provide
• How the business can be contacted

Taking this idea a step further – you could include a contact us page, blog, e-commerce etc.

3) Keep your website simple

A common question asked is ‘Why are my customers not buying, calling or signing up’?

A successful website will clearly state how your customers can buy, contact, sign up etc.
We call it ‘usability’.  This means making sure visitors to your website can find what they are looking for in a reasonably quick and efficient manner.  If a customer has to think or asks a question such as, how do I find….? How can I get to….? Or has to make a guess to find a product, service or information, usability has failed.

Make sure you use:

• descriptive headings
• provide information in lists
• write short, front loaded paragraphs
• design effective navigation into your website

Have you got a clear ‘call to action’?  This is the crucial part, make sure the rest of your site encourages your customers to go to your ‘call to action’.  Make sure your customers know how they can contact you by placing it in a visible position (most commonly in the top right hand corner).  Do want them to phone you, e-mail you or fill in your contact us form?

4) Keeping customers

Give your customers a reason to keep coming back to your website, if they find nothing new on your site, they may not give it a second chance.  Most people use the internet to get free information.  Listen to and address your customers concerns, worries and ideas.

Offers and promotions are a way of encouraging customers to come back to your website and can lead to referrals.

Write articles/produce newsletters that may be of interest to your customers.  Put us news items about your business.  You could talk about:

• new products, services or deals you now offer
• projects or sales you have made
• any new developments taking place

Encourage your customers to write articles for you to post on your website.  This keeps your site up to date and can be good for search engine optimization (SEO).  You can find ideas about what to write from trade journals, the internet, local papers or use your own creativity. 

Change the content, images or pictures on your website regularly.  A good, easy to use Content Management System (CMS) should allow you to do this with ease. 

5) Make your site search engine (seo) friendly. 

 If you want a search engine friendly website, then follow these tips:

• Avoid intros designed in Flash, (animation used on websites).  Search engines find it difficult to find the information, it increases download times, it may not be viewed by everybody as you want it to, as well as many other reasons.
• Avoid revolving globes, beveled line separators and animated mail boxes.  Very cheesy!  Could make your website look old fashioned.
• Don’t have too many pop-up or pop-under boxes.  This can be annoying to many people.
• Try not to have auto play music. Let your customer choose to play music if
  offering it strengthens your message.
• Leave off ‘free hit counters’ saying "you’re the 27th visitor".  And….?  Will having this information make any difference to helping your customers find what they want?  The space taken by the counter could be used in a better way.
• Don’t have date and time stamps, unless you update your website daily
  or weekly.
• Avoid busy backgrounds.  This could distract your customers from looking at what you are really trying to sell or offer.

Want to use our experience and expertise to create a successful website?

Feel free to get in touch.