Creating a Simple Business Website

 Creating a simple business website to attract local traffic and increase your sales is not as difficult as it used to be. Today there are many options and services that offer small business owners the opportunity to host a business website that are easy setup and inexpensive to maintain.

The first rule of creating a small business website is in the title. Keep it simple. Your site needs to be clean, easy to read, and answer all the questions your clients or prospects may have. The navigation must be easy to follow with big menu items and internal links that take your visitors to their intended pages and sections.

Things to avoid;

Flash - Flash sites might look good but they are not practical as they are hard for search engines to index and return search results. They are best reserved for companies that are well know like Ford.com.

Music and Animations - Unless your website is about music or video productions your website should not be playing any kind of music or videos automatically. Adding videos to you website should be reserved for videos of your products and services. And these videos should only play when a visitors makes a request to see the video.

Picture gallery on the home page - Avoid putting all your pictures on the home page. This will create clutter and complicate your website. If you have many pictures of your products or services, create a photo section and organize your photos into categories to facilitate your visitors' experience.

Links that leave your site - When a visitor clicks on link the results should open in the same window. Avoid links that would open a new window or new tab for pictures, PDF documents, or order forms.

Dark colors and hard to read fonts - Your website might be easy to read on a "monster monitor" but you need to realize that a lot of people have small laptop monitors or they might be viewing your website from a smart phone. The best practice for displaying information is dark text on a white background.

If you keep your home page small and clean it will load fast for people on slow connections and that will decrease the chance of people losing patience and going to another website. So avoid 3rd party content, big images and videos.

Things you need;

You must have your business information on every page - Your company name should be at the top and be there with every page. It should be a link back to your home page in case visitors feel lost and want to return to the beginning.

A reason to be - Why do you have this website? You must present your case on the home page.

1. Here's what I offer. State what it is that you do and how and where you do it.
2. Here's what I offer going to do for you. State what it is your visitors should expect from you and how it's going to solve their problem.
3. Here's how to get it. Don't be shy, you are in business you need to be clear on how your visitors should get your products and services.

A contact form- Your site requires a contact for for people who are not comfortable in asking questions in person or on the phone. You would be surprised at the number of people who just can't get themselves to pick up the phone for the simplest request for information. Make it easy for them to contact you with the use of a form or simple email.

Contact information and business hours - If you have a brick and mortar business and you want your visitors to visit your location make sure you have your store information on your site. You could also include a map and driving directions from major landmarks.

Websites in a box
There are many companies out there that offer easy made business websites. Although they are simple to use they can get expensive and lack originality. Plus the ones that use flash technology do not place well in search engine rankings.

WordPress websites
WordPress has become a solution for many small business who want to have the opportunity to add content on a regular basis. The blog feature of WordPress allows business owners to include articles, tips, news, or other content that get indexed by search engines and in turn produces traffic back to the website. WordPress is free to use but it can be a bit difficult to modify the templates to have a custom look for your business.

Website Creator Software
Again there are many companies that offer great software to create websites. The advantage of these is that you can get the exact look you seek for your business, the con is you have to have some serious designing skills.

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