For small businesses looking to educate and engage with customers online, having a website that highlights your most important aspects, products and services and pertinent business information is crucial. According to Dave Meyer, president of Bizzy Web, a great website is: goal oriented, intuitive, organized, useful, functional and search-friendly.
In a recent MarketingBitz webinar, Dave discussed each of these components, the underlying questions and the steps that should be taken to achieve them. Here is a breakdown of each:
Goal Oriented
When creating a small business website, determining your goals is the first step. Whether you’re looking to build your brand, generate leads or re-engage customers, each of these components will help determine what your website strategy should be. Ask yourself: How will your site help achieve your business goals? Who is your target audience? How will you measure success?
Intuitive
When designing your website, it’s important to look at how all of the aesthetics will work together (content, fonts, colors, graphics, etc.). Websites should be designed with attractive, consistent graphics, simple navigation, site search, readable text and useful tools. It should also be mobile-optimized to ensure you’re reaching consumers on the go.
Organized
The information present on your site should be organized in a manner that helps you achieve your business goals. Tips for this include:
- Using short, descriptive names and labels
- Keeping your site visitors in mind — how are they looking for information?
- Making sure important information is visible and accessible in the main navigation
Useful
Creating content (text, images, video) that tells your businesses story while educating customers is important. Content must also be recognizable to search engines, as this is how your business will be found in online searches. Best practices for text include using important keywords and bulleted lists. With images, it’s important to make sure they are high-quality, complement the site design and you that you have permission to use them. With videos, focus on the three C’s: conversations, connections and conversions.
Functional
Functionality refers to the features that allow site visitors to take actions, such as site searches, online forms and tools. Organizing and optimizing these functions in a way that fits your target audience can provide numerous benefits.
Search-Friendly
Google’s algorithm is responsible for finding the information that a person looks for on Google. Those results are then ranked in order of relevance. In order to help Google better understand your site and increase your probability of ending up in search results, your site should have a fast load time, useful content, text links and page titles and descriptions.
