Robyn Rivera
Building a small business website can be a daunting task. There are so many things to consider — from design and layout to functionality and SEO. But don't worry, we're here to help!
In this blog post, we will discuss the basics of small business website design and provide some tips on how to get started. So whether you're a small business owner who is building your first website or you just need a refresher course, read on for some helpful advice!
Before you even start building your small business website, you need to know what your goal is.
What do you want your website to achieve? Are you looking to increase sales? Drive traffic to your brick-and-mortar location? Provide information about your products or services?
Once you have a clear understanding of your goal, you can begin to develop a plan for your website. It will also help guide your decisions about which website builder to use and which website design templates to choose.
Now that you know what your goal is, you need to determine which pages will help you achieve it.
For example, if your goal is to increase sales, you will need a page for each of your products or services. If your goal is to drive traffic to your brick-and-mortar location, you will need a page with your address and hours of operation.
Once you have a list of the pages you need, you can start to think about the content you will include on each page.
Some common small business website pages include:
Of course, this is not an exhaustive list. The pages you need will depend on your specific business and goals.
If you're not sure where to start, take a look at a competitor's small business website to see which pages they have. This can give you some ideas for your own website.
Now that you have an understanding of your goal and the pages you need, it's time to start thinking about the design of your small business website.
What colors will you use? What fonts will you use? What style will your website have?
It's important to create design guidelines for your small business website so that everything is consistent and looks professional.
Some things you may want to consider when creating your design guidelines:
Once you have created your design guidelines, you can start to look for website templates that match your style.
If you want your small business website to look professional, it's important to use high-quality images.
One way to ensure that your images are of the highest quality is to hire a professional photographer. They will be able to take pictures of your products, services, employees and more that you can use on your small business website.
Stock photos can't come close to competing with professional, high-quality pictures of your business. Although, they'll do in a pinch.
Best of all, when you hire a photographer, you can use the images beyond your website — in your ads, social media posts, local listings and even offline marketing materials, like brochures or direct mail.
The easiest way to build your own small business website is with a website builder, like Websites 360®. With Websites 360, all you have to do is choose a website design template and customize it for your business with a user-friendly drag-and-drop editor.
When the time comes to choose your website design template, always make sure that you think about how your website will look and work on a mobile device.
More and more people are using their smartphones and tablets to browse the internet, so it's important that your small business website is mobile-friendly and responsive.
A responsive website design template will automatically adjust to fit any screen size, making it easy for visitors to view your website no matter what device they're using.
If you want your small business website to be successful, you need to make sure that it's optimized for search engines.
That means creating content — like blog posts, product descriptions and landing pages — with the right keywords so that people can find your small business website when they're searching online.
When determining which keywords to include in your website content, think about what you would search if you were looking for your products or services online. The more specific the keywords, the better.
In general, the more specific a keyword, the less competition there will be and the more likely you are to rank high for it.
Plus, people searching for more specific keywords are more likely to know what they want and less likely to be in the research phase of the buying process.
Every small business needs a website. I hope these tips will help you build a great website for your small business. Get started with Websites 360!
Originally published on 3/31/22