Maintain your site. Staying relevant is important, so update your website frequently with blog posts on current industry events, new products and offers, and company news to keep visitors coming back to the site. You should also check at least monthly to ensure your software and all add-ons are up to date. Pheil said that if your software is not up to date, it’s in danger of being hacked, even if your website host’s security is strong. If you don’t have time to do this yourself, delegate the task to a trusted employee or a freelance website manager. Starting a website for your business is a low-cost investment that can help you establish credibility and reach a wider customer base than you ever could through traditional marketing techniques. If you keep your website updated with fresh, current content and are quick to address technical issues, you’ll never have to worry about “not existing” to your current and future clients.
Key takeawayKey takeaway: Keep your site up to date with fresh content and timely information to ensure it remains professional and top of mind for your audience. Business website FAQs How much does a business website cost? According to research by Mark Brinker, the average cost of a small business website ranges from $4,000 to $10,000. The reason for such a wide range has to do with the type of business involved and the amount of work the business owner is willing to do. The difference between taking your own pictures and hiring a photographer can be a few hundred dollars. The same can be said for professional copywriting for web content and so on. How long does it take to create a business website? Website creation can range from days to months, but if you’re looking for an average, we can turn to DreamHost, a leading web host provider for small businesses, and they say the typical website building process runs between two and four months.
What should you include on your website? Every business should include pertinent information like who you are, what you do and how you can be contacted? Your site should also include the products or services you sell, along with an easy way for customers to make purchases online. Businesses may want to include mission statements, reviews, testimonials and a regularly updated blog that provides valuable information regarding the company and industry. Nicole Fallon and Stella Morrison contributed to the reporting and writing in this article. Some source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article. Your website should be designed keeping in mind your audience and should ensure that it improves user experience. Your website is one of the most important aspects of your brand’s online presence and it's important that you design it right. Your website is also the place where you nurture your bottom-of-the-funnel leads to get conversions. So, you can’t afford any website fails that might cause your prospects to bounce off your website.
Your website should be designed keeping in mind your audience and should ensure that it provides good user experience. There are a lot of other benefits of a good website design for both your business and your audience. In this post, we will discuss why good website design is important from your audience’s perspective. Sign up for Free membership Brand image Your website is a reflection of your brand and everything that it stands for. It is usually one of the first things people look at to get to know a brand and therefore helps form the first impression. Your website design elements, like colours, fonts, images, etc. all form your brand identity. Therefore, you need to select those elements carefully and keep them consistent across your website.
FixLook at the screenshot of Coca Cola’s homepage, for example. Coca Cola's homepage See how the brand has used the company’s distinctive red colour on a white background. Red and white are the colours of the company’s logo, packaging of their traditional coke bottles, and a lot of other brand elements. It maintains this consistency because these two distinctive colours represent the brand and people associate these with the company. Here are some of the web design elements that you should select carefully and then use consistently. Colour If you already have some brand colours that align with your logo and other brand identity elements, then you should use those on your website as well. However, if you’re starting from scratch, then you can use this study to understand colour associations.
For example, if you want to associate your brand with trust, then you should use the colour blue. And, if you want consumers to think that your brand produces high-quality products, then the colour black can help you form that image. Similarly, depending on what brand associations you want to form, you can select your brand colours. You can then select colours that evoke certain emotions or thoughts in people. For example, blue is the colour most associated with trust and black with quality. Layout As a rule of thumb, keep your layout simple, clean, and designed in a way that draws attention to the most important parts. Also, the number of menu options or the elements in a drop-down menu should be determined based on your audience preferences. You can experiment with a few different layouts and conduct split testing to understand what works best with your audience. One of the best examples of cluttered website design and how it affects usability is shown below. The website is very difficult to navigate and the lack of a grid design makes it messy and chaotic.
Arngrn website Now, let’s compare it with another website with a cleaner layout to see how it could have been structured instead. This website also focuses on the products and services but has organized the various web elements well. The use of a grid format further adds structure to the page. Concrete LCDA Fonts and typography The general rule for selecting a font is that it should be easy-to-read and clearly visible on the background colour that you selected. The actual selection, however, should depend on your audience. Younger people, for example, often prefer more fun and stylish fonts. Older people might prefer clean and simple ones that are easier to read. Your font should also reflect your brand personality and whether you want to look professional or fun and youthful.
Here’s an example of a brand that does this well by their use of a creative font to reflect their own creativity. Laura Worthington Design Website accessibility You should design your website in a way that makes it accessible to all. It will not only make the experience better for your audience but is also required by law. This means designing your website so that people with disabilities can also access it. This is, however, easier said than done. Most website designers and agencies are not even aware of this, let alone able to design an accessible website. So, whether you build your website yourself or use a web design agency, make sure that you design an accessible website. While this can be extremely challenging, you can make the most of solutions like accessiBe to simplify the whole process. The company provides you with a code, which you can install so your website will instantly display an accessible interface.
