Marketing is the lifeblood of any startup, but it is not always an easy task to accomplish. In the present world, almost every business needs a website, as it is considered to be the face of the firm. The impact of the design of a website is highly significant. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but an effective web design can be worth thousands of dollars.
Running a small business is quite challenging and demanding in the best of times. A professional online presence is all but necessary if you want to be able to form your brand, appeal new customers, and retain the ones you already have. Many small business owners shy away from building up a website, scared that the technology involved may be too complicated.
Mistakes to Avoid When Building a Small Business Site
When designing your new small business website, here are a few common mistakes that you will certainly want to avoid committing.
1. Being Too Flashy
Flash animation definitely has its place in website design- but it’s typically not for the homepage of your small business site.
When customers visit your site, they are looking for helpful information regarding the products or services that interest them. They are not there to see a slowly unfolding display of digital animation. It is always advisable to use certain kinds of flash wisely and sparingly in your professional web design.
2. Less Responsive
This is the ultimate beginner’s mistake. It’s a website that responds to its environment in order to provide the users the best possible viewing experience. If a user in searching your site on the cell phone, then the site layout should be responsive enough to display all the relevant elements swiftly.
People mostly prefer surfing on their mobile phones in the current environment. 61% of users who face trouble accessing a mobile site are unlikely to return to the site. Of those, around 40% will switch to a competitor’s site instead.
When selecting a website builder or platform to create your website, try to make sure you pick one that can offer responsive designs. Ideally, you do want to be messing around with a sluggish design that will drive away mobile visitors.
3. Confusing Navigation
You have created a beautiful looking homepage complete with CTAs and all, your product pages are designed for high conversion, and your website loads at an excellent speed. But when a visitor lands on your website, they likely already have an idea in mind of what they are searching for, and they want it fast. If your navigation is confusing, none of the other elements will matter.
You should be making the rest of the process as easy as possible with a provision of a smooth and fast navigating design.
It is highly imperative to choose a design template that allows you to come up with a clean and efficient navigation. It is also significant to just focus on your business offerings and create navigation tabs that broadcast the most relevant aspects.
4. Lack of Research When Choosing Host
It has been observed that many people never look beyond the price, and most general information about the host’s reputation when choosing where to have a launch of their website. This is perhaps one of the biggest mistakes you can make because an unreliable host means a weak, crashing and unsecure website.
It is important to understand the dynamics of hosting; you need to learn what website uptime is and how it can hamper the prosperity of your business. You should always look for the provider with the highest uptime. There are numerous top hosts who offer affordable initial packages, so any small business can easily afford them.
5. Absence of Mobile Optimization
In the era of smart-phones, most of the searches are being made on mobile devices. It is reported that nearly 52% of all internet users browse websites from smart-phones. You need to make sure that you are appealing to the target audience by having a mobile responsive design.
When there is an absence of mobile-optimization, the design gets skewed when viewed from a cell phone. Users take this as confusing and irritating and will likely to switch to the competitor.
The Bottom Line
There’s never been a better and more suitable time to create or restructure your small business website. A good site can enhance your customer base, increase digital sales conversions and brand awareness.
The main mistakes to avoid when launching a site range from poor message planning to a confusing choice of host. You should watch out for all of them as it’s significantly essential to make your website as close to perfect as possible.
Guest article written by: Sohail Rupani is a Senior SEO Strategist for an agency known for best SEO Services in Florida ‘PNC Digital‘. He specializes in SEO and SEM techniques. He is passionate about technology and loves to analyze the tech industry in his spare time and stay in touch with the latest happenings. He also writes technical articles about SEO and digital marketing. Follow @sohailrupani for more updates.
Hi Sohail,
Good post. It is important to have an easy to navigate site so that your visitors find it easy and helpful. Responsive site for mobile phone users is a must since more than 50% traffic is generated through mobile phones.
Thanks for sharing this post, have a good day.