4 Essential Steps to Make Your Business Website Effective

Learn more about how to design an effective business website

 
An online presence is paramount to every businesses’ success in today’s digital world, and the best way to establish a strong online presence is by having a website for your business. However, you can’t just have any kind of website; your website has to be effective when it comes to helping you realize your business goals—whether if it’s to generate sales, improve customer service, or streamline business processes.

There are many factors that come into play when evaluating the effectiveness and success of a website, but plenty of weight is attributed to web design. After all, aesthetics is the first thing that draws people to further explore your website; in fact, 48% of users decide on the credibility of a website based solely on a website’s design. Whatever your business goals are, your website should be strategically designed with the end goal in mind. Here are tips on how to design and create an effective website:
 

1. Focus on what’s important

An effective website succinctly tell visitors what your business is all about. So many websites nowadays focus too much on witty wordplay and marketing language that they fail to communicate the most basic essence of their business. Don’t leave people guessing. Design your website as such that viewers immediately know what products and services you offer, your value proposition, and the action you want them to do. At a minimum, your website should have the following important elements:

• Call-to-action – The best way to simplify your website is to have a prominent and clear call-to-action that tells visitors what to do. Pair the CTA with a landing page that’s consistent and with the goal in mind.
• About – Include a short description about your business, how you started, the people behind the company, and other key information that highlights your business’ key differentiator.
• Products – Introduce the products and services you offer with a short description that highlights what sets you apart from other similar products. Include high-quality images of your products, or bring it up a notch higher and create an explainer video.
• Contact – Let customers know where they can find your business and how to reach you. We’ll go into more detail about this in the next section.

2. Make your contact information visible

Your business’ contact information is considered one of the most important elements of a business website. Studies show that 44% of website visitors leave if there’s no contact information in sight. That said, it’s crucial to place your contact information where it’s ubiquitously visible, preferably at the header or footer. It’s also a good idea to have a contact form accessible through the main navigation menu. You can also create a dedicated “Contact Us” page that’s easily accessible from the homepage. Be as detailed as possible and include the following preferred contact information if available:

• Address
• Phone number
• Email address
• Business hours
• Google Maps embed widget
• Social media links

3. Optimize for search engines

SEO is essential for driving more traffic to your website from organic search queries. It’s also an important factor to consider when designing your site. While SEO is a lot more complicated than what meets the eye, here are some basic tips to help you optimize your website for search engines:

• Do keyword research – Keyword research is the first thing that you should do before coming up with an SEO strategy. Find relevant keywords that your target audience will most likely use when they are searching on the internet. Use these keywords in strategic places on your website, such as in title tags and H1 header tags.
• Include a keyword-rich meta description – Meta descriptions help improve your website’s CTR by providing a short blurb on what your site is about. To optimize your meta description, be sure to include your target keyword(s) and use active words reminiscent to CTAs, like “Learn more”.
• Create valuable content – The concept behind SEO is practically built around the right content. To help boost your chances of ranking on the first page of SERPs, make it a point to write content on your website that is valuable and relevant to your audience’s needs. It’s important that the content clearly explains your products and services and that it has a reasonable amount of targeted keywords.

4. Optimize for mobile

As more and more people access the internet through their mobile devices, it’s more important than ever to have a business website that’s mobile-responsive. Your website should be able to seamlessly respond to various screen sizes without compromising user experience. When developing your website, take into consideration the following mobile web design best practices:

• Use breakpoints – With myriads of screen sizes available on the market, it’s not a smart idea to have a specific resolution in mind when designing a mobile website. Instead, it’s more prudent to use breakpoints or media queries. It’s recommended that you have at least 3 breakpoints, one for each type of device: smartphone, tablet, and desktop.
• Use a grid-style layout – Placing your text and content in blocks which are aligned in a grid not only makes it look neater and more organized, it also makes for a more fluid look when transitioning from desktop to mobile.
• Make text legible – Font size is particularly important in mobile web design; the text on your website should be legible on tiny mobile devices too. A font size of 16px is usually preferred, and a Sans Serif font style looks best when reading online on most devices.

 
Your business is a cost-effective and versatile marketing tool that can be used to achieve your business goals on one single platform. Don’t rush the design and development processes; the best and most effective websites weren’t launched overnight. It takes time and patience to develop a business website that delivers real results.

— Tinny