If you are starting a business, or you have already started up a business, then you know that you need to have a quality website. However, you may not know exactly what your business site should have and which elements are going to be the most important to consider. It can be confusing for those who have never had to set up and run their own site before, but it is not too hard. The advice that follows will give you more insight into the most important things that your website should have.
Here are the 10 most important things customers want to know:
Look Professional
Sloppy, plain or homemade-looking websites are a visitor turnoff. This is quite obvious!
A Good Domain Name
Domain names domain extension domain extension name web internet www website technology com dot hosting address global network communication symbol connection information business online url net http biz org gov us domain domain domain domain domain url Your business website needs to have a domain that is the same as your business, or that is as close as possible. Having a domain name that is too far away from your business name means that people are not going to be able to find it. Take the time to come up with a quality domain name for your business, even if you have to get creative.
About Us Page
When people are just finding out about your company, they want to learn as much as they can. They also want to do it in one location if they can. This means you need to have an About Us, or an About Me, page for your site. This is where you can put your company’s story, your bio, and similar information. It should give the readers a better idea of who you are and what your company is bringing to the table. Try to make this page interesting to read.
A Great Platform and Host
If you are using a low-quality site builder and a terrible host, your site is going to suffer because of it. Instead, you will want to make sure that you find a trusted, quality builder for your site. WordPress is one of the best options whether you are creating a website or a blog, as there are plenty of features and options, you can add plugins to make the site work as needed, and it tends to be quite easy to get everything up and running. They also have a hosting option that can be used.
There are plenty of other great hosts out there, as well, and most are quite affordable. Some of the options that you might want to consider include Bluehost, HostGator, Fat Cow, and Just Host.
Easy Navigation
The site that you create for your business needs to have easy to use navigation for your customers. When people come to your site, they are interested in the products or services that you have to offer. They might want to know more about your company and what you offer. What they do not want is to deal with a confusing mess of a navigation system. If you are using WordPress, you will find that the professional themes that you can use tend to have quality navigation built right into them. Having a simpler navigation system is going to be much better than having a complex system that people can’t figure out.
If people can’t find it, they can’t buy it. “The ability to search a site is very important.” “Businesses should study their search data to see if there are trends and what to make front and center.”
Contact Information
You should also be sure to have your contact information prominently displayed on the website. In fact, you should have it displayed on all of your pages. You can put this information right in the footer in most cases. Additionally, you will want to have a specific page that is just for your contact information, just in case some of the customers need to get in touch, and they did not notice the info that you have put in the footer.
Calls to Action
One of the other things that you need to think about when you are creating content for your site, whether it is for the various pages, your blog, or any other part of your site, is the call to action. Some examples might be a CTA to get people to sign up for your newsletter or calls for people to take a survey that you have put up. There are chances that you will have several different CTAs on your site. They are valuable because they encourage more interaction and engagement on your site, and that is just what you want for your business.
Quality Content
Naturally, having quality content for your website and blog is essential. The content, regardless of where it appears, needs to be valuable to your visitors in some way. Whether it is a description of the products or services that you offer, a how-to post on your blog that explains how to use some of the items that you sell, or any other type of content, it needs to be high-quality and it needs to be beneficial to your customers.
Good Overall Design
Desktop, laptop, craftsUltimately, you want to have a great overall design for your website. This includes the aesthetics and the branding of the site, and the layout of the site, not to mention the images that you are using. Consider checking out some sites from your competitors to see what they have on their site and take some inspiration from that with your own web design. You do not want to copy their design, but you want to incorporate some of the good elements.
Be Secure / Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
If you accept online credit card payments for products or services, your site must comply with the requirements of the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council.
SSL is an encryption system that helps protect the privacy of data exchanged between a customer and a website. If you have an e-commerce site that takes credit card information, customers want to know that their sensitive data is encrypted. Get SSL if you don’t have it. If you do, let customers know that and about any other safeguards you proactively take.
Last, but not least,
Third-party validation
This means customer testimonials, client lists, case studies, awards and recognition you’ve received, positive news clippings and the like. Potential customers indeed want to know who you do business with, and what current customers have to say about their experiences. Such items “forge the underpinnings of trust.”.
Client lists are especially important if your customers are businesses. “If you’ve got some big-name customers, people like to see that.”
ALSO, and very important is having a presence on social networking sites and blogs, especially those serving your industry, is an increasingly popular form of validation among customers. “Social networking now has strong validation.”
Make your website mobile optimized
As consumers increasingly use smartphones and tablets to browse the web, it’s more important than ever to make sure that your business website can smoothly transition from desktop to mobile views. “Consumers already demand a desktop experience when browsing on a mobile device or tablet, and mobile-optimized websites will be the key ingredient to delivering on that demand.”
In Conclusion
Play it safe and invest in an expert. A bad design will cost you more in the long run if you dismiss the idea of hiring a web designer.
“There is a science to good design, and a good designer is worth the cost and will make sure to explain every part of their reasoning to you during the process so that you understand how and why things will work or won’t work,” contact us to see how we can help you!
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