Seven Elements of a Good Business Website

Your website is the first impression that many potential customers will have of your business, so it is vital to ensure that it is both eye-catching and a good representative of your company. The following seven tips will help you provide visitors with a website that will encourage them to do business with you.

1) Speed

No one likes to wait for a website to load, so it is important to make sure that yours loads quickly. This means that you should either minimize or completely avoid things such as Flash graphics and music or videos that play automatically.

2) Mobile Accessibility

The emergence of smartphones and tablets have made it imperative for your website to support mobile accessibility. There are two ways that you can achieve this: your site can be simplistic enough to easily load on a mobile device or it can automatically bounce to a mobile friendly version when applicable.

Speaking of Mobile experiences, see this article on Design Elements to follow on Mobile Apps.

3) Access to Social Networking Pages

Although your website will draw people in, it is still important to send them to your social networking pages. After all, if they start following you on Facebook or Twitter, they will be much more likely to remember your company in the future when they have a need for your product or service.

4) Design

Many designers once believed that websites needed to be really flashy in order to capture the average Internet user’s attention, but it has become increasingly clear that most people actually prefer a clean, streamlined website.

It is the suggestion of our SEO Atlanta company, that it is more important to have an easy to utilize navigation bar and easy to read text than it is to spend an exorbitant amount of time designing an especially confusing design. It is necessary to stand apart from your competitors, but you can do that without making your website look like the Las Vegas Strip.

5) Content

Regardless of what industry you are in, your customers are always going to be interested in accessing quality content. The written aspects of your website need to be proofread for errors before they are posted, and it is always a good idea to hire a writer to ensure that the content is highly readable. You should also consider having a section of your site that allows consumers to learn more about your industry. For example, if you are a photographer, you should post articles on your website that teach your clients tips for getting the perfect photo.

You also might be interested in E-commerce web design principles.

6) Privacy Statement

If you have an online store or collect information from your customer via your website, then you should have a comprehensive privacy statement that allows visitors to learn exactly how you will store and use their information. The presence of a privacy policy will make consumers feel more comfortable even if they choose not to read it.

7) Graphics

The Internet is a highly visual medium, so you need to provide images that represent your company or industry. Avoid using clip art, though, and keep in mind that fresh graphics are always better than commonly used stock images.

If you want examples of what to do versus what not to do, simply visit Alexa.com’s top sites and take a look at what they all have in common. Sites such as Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia and YouTube all provide information in a more simplistic format, and this makes them much more accessible to users.