By Daniel Morel
Small Business Website Design is more than just coding HTML or using pre-made templates to add some content. Having a good small business website design is about including all the elements required to ensure your visitors have a pleasant experience on your website where they can trust you and find answers to their questions.
Include these 7 elements in your small business website design and you will have a small business website that will rank well in the search engines and will convert your visitors into customers.
A clear purpose
It has to be clear from the first seconds your visitor lands on your page. Tell your visitor exactly what you’re offering. You should decide exactly what course of action your targeted visitor should follow. Then guide your reader along that course with clear content, and avoid anything that might distract their attention or divert them from that course.
Clear customer benefit
This is where you load your copy with evidence as to how the reader’s life will be improved by your products or services. Here is where you talk about your skills, how your products are better, cheaper, last long or whatever added value they offer. It’s about giving details of the materials or special techniques you use can influence a visitor to purchase from you. Showing pictures, providing customer feedback or case studies can help a visitor answer some questions they might have and help you close the deal.
Onscreen reader friendliness
Avoid using long paragraphs and an a large amount of pictures on your landing page. The home page makes the introduction to the reader. It is where you present your offer and explain how you will be changing the reader’s life and to fulfill a call to action. To give more details or information direct your visitors to other pages designed to do just that.
Clear language
A small business should use a personal approach where you introduce yourself in the first or second paragraph – just as if you were shaking hands with someone. Take advantage of the fact that people feel comfortable much quicker if they know there’s a real person, not a faceless company, on the other end of the line. If you are a one man business don’t be shy and use “I” in your copy. Make the connection with your reader and give him the real picture of what your business is all about.
Professional impression
The small business website should be simple and use colors that are appropriate for their business. Keeping the style of dark text on a light background is easier to read and project a more professional image than using dark backgrounds or neon colored fonts. Small businesses should use a simple two column layout with a large area for the main content and a sidebar for other items. The website navigation should be at the top with the company’s main logo and contact information. In the sidebar you should have an about me section with your picture and a few lines on your career as business owner. The sidebar is also a great place for your main contact option, sales offers, news items, upcoming events and so on.
Search engine friendliness
Website titles can contain more than one key word and every single page should have its own separate title. The main website title should be the business’ main keyword along with the company name or geographical location like “Custom Handmade Humidor by Arlin Liss” or “Central Air Repairs and Installations — Burbank, CA.” Then when you create pages and articles for your website you include to long keywords in the tile of each page. “What to Put on a Small Business Website — An article by Daniel Morel”. Each page is designed to bring in it’s own traffic. So the more pages targeting the right keywords you have the better the chances of your site being indexed by the search engines.
Inside every single page you place the keywords for that page inside headings, sub headings, picture captions, links, bold, italics and so forth. When it is done right it looks natural to readers and still does its job with search engines.
Clear call to action
Will visitors know what to do once you’ve convinced them that they must own what you sell or hire your services? Once you have engaged your reader there should be little distractions on the path to the call to action. The website copy needs flow directly into a single call to action. Finish the body copy with a direct appeal, e.g. “Why not get in touch with me right now?” or “Ad to Cart”.
When designing a business website just remember to keep free of clutter and excessive animations introduce yourself and what you do and to solve your visitors problems by answering their questions. When you create content that is optimized for both the readers and the search engines by concentrating a few keywords per page but using the keywords as often as possible you increase the chances of being indexed by the search engines. And always remember that a simple and well organized website will make your business look more professional and attract more qualified prospects. Could Google.com be any simpler?
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Daniel_Morel/390943
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