Securing a domain name is just the start. We all know that building an online presence is important in today’s market but just putting up any old size just won’t do. A badly made, hard to navigate, non-functioning website is actually going to do your business more harm than good.
Think of it this way – your website is the face of your business on the Internet, it represents your business, your brand, your products and services, your team and you. An unprofessional website will lead people to think you are just that – unprofessional.
The Website Design Centre team have used their industry experience to come up with what your new business website must have to be successful:
A holding page or ‘Under Construction’ webpage is fine but only for a while. Consistently seeing this when landing on a website offers your audience a negative user experience and will discourage them from returning or contacting your business. This can also affect your search engine rankings since Google will know that people are landing on your site but clicking straight off again.
The design of your website can affect your ranking and results with search engines. Google ‘spiders’ or software robots are constantly crawling the Internet and reporting back their findings. A badly design, difficult to navigate site will return a poor result and negatively impact upon your ranking.
More tips:
- Have an easy to follow site map and a user friendly layout
- Make the website easy to navigate so people can find what they are looking for
- Have an obvious and clear ‘Call to Action’ (what you want people to do)
- Have a responsive design so that your website is accessible for mobile, tablet and PC users
- Choose a professional design with professional logos, sharp images, clear fonts and appealing colours
- Steer clear of sounds or Flash – they can slow load times, don’t necessarily work on all devices and honestly, can be annoying
- Provide engaging content that will appeal to your target audience and is relevant to your industry and your business
- Have unique content – copying other people’s sites will affect your search engine rankings
- Ensure that the information is up-to-date
- Include keywords relevant to your business but don’t go overboard. ‘Stuffing’ keywords will only harm your SEO practices
- And edit. There is nothing more unprofessional and therefore damaging than a websites that is peppered with spelling mistakes, typos and grammatical errors.
If you need more information on how to create a professional website to enhance your online presence, contact the Website Design Centre team today.
