Aside from the technical essentials of picking the right CMS and ensuring your website grows in line with your business, consideration needs to be given to its information architecture and user experience.
One of the main areas where SMEs fall short in this respect is poor navigation and lack of signposting. Poorly designed navigation menus make it difficult for customers to find what they’re looking for and you will ultimately lose customers.
Slipping into these web design pitfalls can cost your business so it is worth investing in creating a website that not only elevates your business, but that also converts viewers into loyal customers.
Design, functionality, and performance all need to be taken into consideration when building a website. Business owners and marketing teams should find a web design agency that can blend digital design and marketing skills with the technical knowledge to create a website that is both eye-catching, engaging and efficient.
Quality content
In addition to stand-out aesthetics and powerful functionality, your website’s content needs to match. Copy must be engaging with current and accurate information that is relevant to your target audience. You can also ascertain how to create the most impactful copy with advanced SEO and analytics tools that can inform keywords and attract more consumers to your website by boosting your positioning on search engine result pages.
Purchase a good domain name
Your website needs to be easy to find and a memorable domain name that’s clear, concise, and easy to spell will help with this.
Use a secure and scalable hosting system that has support in place
Make your life easier by picking a hosting system that has support in place via the phone or a chatbot system so you can quickly get help if a problem arises.
Implement a CMS that works for you
There are many CMSs to choose from, it’s important that you pick one that is designed to meet your unique needs. WordPress is the world’s most popular CMS – over 455 million websites use it.
Choose a good e-commerce platform
If you would like to sell goods through your website, then you will need an e-commerce platform in place to support this. As with CMSs, there are a range of e-commerce platforms to choose from so take the time to pick one that suits your business needs.
Apply SEO to your build
Search engine optimisation is paramount to get you seen on those all-important search engine result pages.
A strong user experience should be the foundations of your website
Websites are often a customer’s first impression of your business, so it needs to be geared up for them and their needs to ensure they have a positive user experience and visit again.
Create an engaging and memorable website user interface that is aesthetically pleasing
Make a solid first impression with a website that uses engaging and attractive graphics and fonts, colourful images, interesting copy, and visuals that stay on brand throughout.
Comprehensive signposting system throughout to aid navigation
An intuitive and clear navigation system will allow users to easily move around your website and get to the pages they need quickly.
Quality content that is accurate, credible, up to date and interesting
Keep your users coming back to your website with quality content that is updated on a regular basis in the form of articles / blog posts. The frequency of new and relevant copy can also determine where you rank on search engine results pages.
Ensure the web design is fully responsive and functioning and can be viewed via a variety of platforms
More than half of all web traffic can be attributed to mobile phones so having a website that is fully responsive and can be viewed on phones, tablets and desktop is essential.
Enlisting the help and support of a specialist agency to transform your website will always be a quicker and easier way to achieve professional results.
After building, managing, and hosting more than 250 websites and with 27 years of experience, we know what it takes to get businesses seen online. Many of our clients report significant increases in sales, including Bandsaw Blades who have seen a 1543% increase this year to date alone. There’s no doubt about it, a good website will elevate your business.
We’d love to help you enhance your digital presence. Chat to a member of our team today and find out how you can transform your website and elevate your business. Call us on 01787 880 260 or email us at hello@indigoross.co.uk
