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Small Business Web Design: A Comprehensive Guide

Small Business Web Design: A Comprehensive Guide

Gone are the days of traditional direct marketing where leaflets and direct mail reign supreme to promote a business. If you’re still skeptical about it, you may consider looking at the statistics regarding small business searches on the internet. Nowadays small business web design is crucial to success. Around 90% of consumers say they turn to search engines to look for small businesses to support. They also prefer using the internet to search for other key information, such as a business address, time of operation, product catalog, and other available services.

With the statistics mentioned above, it’s extremely important for your small business to have an attractive and compelling web design. In this way, you’ll be able to garner the attention of new and existing customers. However, creating a small business website design is no easy task. It requires well-thought-out research and strategic planning for it to succeed. If it seems too much to handle, you may consider visiting small business web design agencies like Smartlydone.com or other similar websites.

But if you want to try it all by yourself, then you’re in the right place. This comprehensive guide will discuss everything you need to know about a professionally-designed small business website. Continue reading below to learn more.

What Is Web Design?

Contrary to popular beliefs, web design isn’t all about the colors, background, and overall appearance of a website. Its aesthetics is just one of many aspects that contribute to a compelling web design.

Web design is an exciting yet challenging process of producing a website. Aside from aesthetic elements, such as backgrounds and layouts, it should also focus on other aspects. These include navigation, content arrangement, planning, releasing updates, and overall execution.

Today, web design goes beyond the usual website setups—with the intent to create a remarkable and memorable user experience. It includes mobile apps and website apps for simplified and engaging content navigation.

Why Is Web Design Important?

A website is an online platform where potential customers get to know you for the first time. It is also where they make their first impression of you. If they don’t enjoy their time around visiting your page, they’ll leave you for another site that can meet their needs without any hesitation.

It's one reason web design is important. Without a proper web design, all your content will be a cluttered mess. Not just that, it’ll also be difficult for your audience to navigate through your platform without encountering several obstacles throughout the process.

An effective web design should satisfy the interests and needs of the company, the audience, and the search engines.

  • The company, a website must be capable of providing effective calls to action. These drive traffic and boost conversion rates.
  • The audience, a website must be capable of offering a solution that can address their pain points, not add up to them.
  • Search engines, a website must be capable of functioning properly to improve web visibility and traffic.

Here are other reasons why web design is crucial to the success of your business:

  • It Creates An Impression That Lasts Long

By the time customers click a link that’ll redirect them to your website, a first impression will be developed in a matter of seconds. That impression is often based on the overall appearance of your website. So, do whatever it takes to be sure that their initial impression of your website is positive and relevant.

Keep in mind that a notoriously unattractive, old-fashioned, and chaotic website will make you lose highly potential customers. They have no other options but to look for others that can serve their needs effectively and efficiently.

  • It Improves Your SEO Efforts

Search engine optimization, or SEO for short, is one of the most crucial elements of running a successful website. It’s the process of keeping your web pages and content optimized. It allows search engines like Google to evaluate and rank your website. You want this rank to be as high as possible for better visibility and high chances of web traffic.

Web design has a significant impact on your SEO efforts. Thus, the design of your platform will determine how search engines will crawl over and index your pages. Also, you want your codes to be SEO-friendly to make your pages appear at the top of search results.

  • It Improves Your Customer Service Efforts

Customer service is crucial to the success of your business. It’s key to building a strong relationship and connection with your customers. Therefore, you want your customer service efforts to be at the top of your priorities.

Web design can help improve customer service efforts. An effective web design allows customers to pose their questions and get the responses and information they need in a timely manner. That said, be sure that your website is clear, recognizable, and welcoming. Also, make sure that all the essential information, particularly your contact details, is always available.

  • It Fosters Deep Trust And Loyalty

These days, cases of cybersecurity continue to rise, affecting tens of thousands of businesses across the world. This rising threat may not only impact businesses running a website but also the customers who interact and transact with them online.

A well-designed, well-built website has strong defenses against hackers and cybercriminals. With this, you’ll be able to protect all the sensitive information your customers may provide, making them feel at ease and building loyalty.

On top of that, an old-fashioned website seems unworthy of trust and loyalty, especially if it obviously lacks all the essential elements a modern website should have. These include modern payment options, information forms, shipping options, etc.

  • It Helps Maintain Your Competitive Edge

If your website looks more appealing, runs faster, and performs better than your competitors, you might be able to attract their customers and convert them into your own. But if your platform is unbelievably inferior to your competitors, you’ll risk losing your customers to them at an incredibly faster rate.

To fix this issue, always perform regular competitor checks and audits to determine if they’re up to something you should know. Make it a habit to stay on top of the competition and prevent losing your customers in the process. You may even consider copying their web design strategy to level up your game.

  • It Makes A Consistent Branding

To establish strong brand awareness and visibility, you should maintain a consistent web design as much as possible. Inconsistent web designs lead to inconsistent branding. It creates confusion among your customers, making them ask, ‘what are you trying to promote and address’ and ‘will you be able to help me?’

To fix this issue, you want to ensure that all your channels are consistent. For example, your website and social media pages use the same logo, font style, graphic elements, etc. But before you proceed with other channels, ensure that your website embraces the consistency you need.

You want all the pages on your website to be properly connected. And you also want them to have the same fonts, layouts, styles, color scheme, and background. Consistency will help build familiarity with your customers, letting them know where they are with every click of a button.

How Can You Say If A Website Has An Appropriate Web Design?

There are many ways to say whether a website has a good and well-thought-out design, such as:

  • Your Website Is Navigable

Easy navigation is crucial to a successful website. It has a proper structure, allowing customers to browse through hundreds of pages without getting lost or confused in the process.

For example, easy navigation lets your customers find the price of a specific product or contact your customer service team without any hassle. It allows you to help them meet their goals and address their needs, giving them a positive and relevant customer experience.

  • Your Website Is Running Effectively

A website with an appropriate web design performs effectively. It’s responsive enough to run on smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices without causing delays and mishaps. After all, responsiveness is now more crucial than ever—thanks to the ever-evolving technology.

That said, check your website and test it out on different devices to see if it’s running the way it should. If not, address the issue as soon as possible to prevent losing your customers to your competitors. If your site runs on WordPress, check out these YouTube wordpress tutorials to see if you can fix the issue yourself.

Also, it’s important to keep in mind that search engines analyze the layout of your website to see if it fits on mobile devices. Why? Because these days, most consumers use their smartphones to search for products and services online.  

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  • Your Website Uses The Right Images 

Adding images and videos is one way to make your content more engaging than plain, boring text on a white background. A good web design embodies this aspect, but this will only be achieved using the right images.

Using beautiful images isn’t enough to make your content the best. They should be relevant to the topic. For example, an image of a forest isn’t ideal for a company offering landscaping services—an image referring to a perfectly-landscaped backyard will do.

Also, don’t make your content crowded with images, especially if it’s not necessary. And consider the placement. It’d be best to place them near the part of the content that discusses them. For example, don’t place an image of a tree beside the paragraph about flowers.

  • Your Website Shows A Strong Copy

Words, or copy, are one of the most crucial parts of a compelling web design. You have to choose them carefully to convey the message you want your audience to hear. Make sure you have a strong and error-free copy. Otherwise, your customers will question your authority or expertise about a specific topic.

So, before you make your content live, make sure it’s grammatically correct and consistent with other pages. Also, it should be written in a way your audience would easily understand, especially if the topic is too technical.

  • Your Website Has Appropriate Calls To Action

Calls to action (CTAs) encourage customers to speed up and accomplish a certain process. For example, if you want to make them subscribe to your newsletter, your website should contain appropriate words, messages, or buttons that would excite them to do so. A good web design uses clear, brand-consistent, and appealing CTAs.

  • Your Website Loads Fast

A well-developed small business web design is fast-loading. It allows websites to load completely in a second or two. If your website fails to load within the two-second timeframe, then say goodbye to your would-be viewers and customers.

That said, check your website and see if it loads on both desktop and mobile devices within two seconds. If it doesn’t, consider removing excess baggage. Crop your images and minify your JavaScript and CSS codes to ensure a fast-loading web architecture.

What Are The Tips For A Professional Small Business Web Design?

Below are some tips that will help you create a professional web design for your small business:

  • Share Your Social Media Pages

Social media is one of the most popular digital online platforms these days. It’s where most people spend their time browsing and looking for small businesses that fit their needs. So, to maximize audience engagement, make sure to include buttons that would redirect your web audience to your social media pages easily. Ideally, these buttons are placed on the sidebar or footer of your website.

  • Create A Scrollable Homepage

A scrollable homepage means it’s accessible to all users regardless of what device they use and their capabilities. It should include modern elements, such as animations, to make your audience’s visit engaging and worthwhile. But make sure to keep it as organized as possible so as not to compromise the website’s navigation. Remember, a scrollable homepage is useless if it’s not navigable.

  • Maximize The Use Of White Space

White space is something you shouldn’t be afraid of. It’s an essential element of a good web design that separates content parts, making it easy to read and understand. Also, it doesn’t have to be white. It can be any color you want as long as it’s consistent with your brand and functions according to its purpose—to prevent overcrowded and indecipherable page elements.

Final Words

Thus, having a website is a no-brainer for small businesses, especially in this age where consumers have gone completely digital, from product searching to purchasing. But designing a website can be challenging. If that’s the case, you may either refer to the discussion above or hire a professional web design agency to evaluate your needs as well as your audience’s.

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