Small Business Web Design - The Best Format To Choose

Small Business Web Design plays an integral part of a new business that is in start up phase. Many companies offer free hosting but their product and service may not suit what you need. This is a decision you need make. You may be able to design the site yourself or you may need outside assistance. Whatever you decide to do, there are a number of things of which you need to be aware.

When people visit your site, they should immediately know who you are and what the nature of your business is. One way to do this is to have an attention grabbing heading on your front page of the website. The company logo should be situated on the top left hand corner. Make sure the contact us button is easily visible. Here you should have a contact us form, your email and your phone number and fax number.


Mission and vision statements are all very touching and nice, however your visitor is there to get a problem solved. He or she wants to know if you can do this and what it will cost him. They want to spend as little time on your website as possible. Prices on your website will save the visitor from having to phone in to get this information. Browse some of your oppositions websites and see what they do not have on their sites. If the missing information is relevant then add it to your web site.

Easy navigation is key. Many people want to access information they want in a single click. If your site is too comprehensive, add a search box. Be sure to title your pages properly and appropriately. Unique titles and keyword phrases will make for great ad copy.

Stick to clean and clear designs with no more than three different fonts. Use a maximum of three different colors. It is very hard to use more than that and make the site look neat. The right balance between graphics and text should be maintained. Search engines cannot determine the relevancy of a website with little to no text. Pictures do speak a thousand words, but you should have at least 250 words of text that is relevant to your business. Avoid using too many bold and italic fonts.

When you add photos to your site, size them properly using the appropriate software. Do not use the cursor at the corners of the photo to decrease the size of the photo, as it will look smaller, but still take a lot of time to load in a browser. The same goes for flash sites. Many people, who are searching the web for something specific, know that flash is just that. It is all about looking impressive and rarely offer any useful information. Therefore, they simply click along to the other search results and give your site a miss. Rather stick to CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), which is the favored format of search engines. Text navigation is also preferable to JavaScript.

If your site is going to contain news then keep the news current. Old news will not encourage visitors to stay long on your site. If you do not plan to update the news each week then rather not have a news page on your website.

Peruse the sites that you are prepared to buy from and then copy the layout, font and formatting that they have. If this still leaves you all at sea then rather second someone who understands Small Business Web Design.