If you run a small business, no matter what you do or where you’re located, you need a website. Small business websites are crucial for online visibility, branding, and driving sales, but only if you have a good web design.
To make a high-quality website for your business, you must know what core features to include. This post will discuss some essential elements that should always be at the forefront of your small business website design.
Whether launching your first small business website or going through a rebrand, your site must have these modern website features checklist to consider. Keep reading, and we’ll show you how to make it happen.
Good Domain Name
Your web address is as important as the address at your brick-and-mortar location. It should be concise and easy to remember but descriptive enough to give a sense of what you do.
A domain name should also be easy to spell. If your visitors misspell your web address, you risk losing out on leads and customers. Registering your domain is the first thing you’ll do when you start your business website, so take your time and develop an original, catchy, and relevant domain name you’ll have for years to come.
Professional Design
First impressions matter, even when people are looking for your business online. The best way to make a good impression on your visitor is to have a clean, professional-looking website that shows them what you do.
When it comes to design, having visual elements representing your brand and what you offer is essential. Including eye-catching images and videos on each site, page will ensure you hold their attention throughout their visit.
You have to strike the right balance between functionality and attractiveness, however. You risk slowing your page load times if you include large-sized images or videos. Visitors usually exit right away when your site takes too long to load.
Easy Navigation
Clarity is an underrated aspect of website design but essential to user experience (UX). When a consumer visits your website, you only have a few seconds to capture their attention. They’ll go elsewhere without simple and effective navigation that accounts for UX.
To make a user-friendly site, you have to think like the consumer. They’re most likely on your page looking for your products or services. Finding this information with a few quick clicks should always be easy.
How you set up your menus and landing pages determines how navigable your site will be. Navigation should be straightforward and to the point. If you’ve got a confusing website, you lose visitor’s engagement.
Mobile Friendliness
Around 70% of web traffic these days comes from mobile devices. For that reason, your online platform had better be responsive to any and every mobile device.
Create a mobile-optimized site by experimenting with page size and menu formats. Navigating a mobile site should be simpler and more to the point than a desktop one. A good web designer will understand this and work with you to ensure your mobile site brings people in, not driving them away.
Clear Calls to Action
Each landing page on your site should have a call to action that urges your visitors to do something specific. The step could be anything from filling out a contact form to signing up for your company newsletter. The call should be a simple and persuasive statement that clarifies what you want the customer to do next.
Consider each action you want the customer to take and how you can word your CTA. CTAs should immediately impact lead generation and revenue, so experiment until you see tangible results.
Search-Friendly Content
Robust search engine optimization (SEO) is a necessary byproduct of having a good website. Your website will rank or show on top of online searches, like Google, if it sees it as relevant and properly optimized.
You always want to be the business that shows up on the first page of the SERP (search engine results page).
A lot goes into SEO, but your content is one of the most important things. Search-friendly content uses the right keywords for your niche but must also engage the reader.
With a steady stream of entertaining and informative content, you’ll make an impression on your visitors and give them a reason to return. You can inject CTAs into your content to direct them to other landing pages.
Accessible Contact Info
Make it easy and accessible for web visitors to contact you. Your site should have a dedicated contact page form where visitors can fill in their phone number, email, name, and description field where they can also input any questions.
Refer to and link to your contact page as much as possible on other landing pages. You can even take it further and put contact info in different pages’ header, footer, or sidebar.
Testimonials
90% of customers trust reviews and testimonials more than what a business says about itself. You must include a testimonials section on your website so new visitors can see what other customers say about you.
Anytime you have a happy customer, please ask them to leave you a positive review to use as a testimonial. This will help build trust with new customers. The more reviews you have on other listings sites, the better it is for your SEO ranking.
Need Help With Your Small Business Website Design?
Now that you know what aspects of web design are most crucial for small business websites, it’s time to discuss the importance of a professional web designer. A good web design company will ensure your business website complements your web presence.
At our agency, we make beautiful small business websites that are SEO-optimized, mobile-ready, and offer real-time traffic statistics. The best part, we offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee.
Our process is simple. It starts with a free web design mockup with real, unique page content specific to your industry. That allows every business owner to preview their future site first. Once you approve the design, we connect your domain and start completing the full launch of your website.