Website Guidelines for Your Business

At SocialTrend Internet Solutions, we love to empower our clients to improve their business thru online marketing. Our goal with this article is to provide ideas for any small business owner to expand their online marketing footprint with their website.

Your business must have its own website. This is so critically important – without your own dedicated domain name customers can’t find you or will deduce you are not a legitimate company. According to the Digital Influence Index, 89% of consumers today use the internet as a research tool before making a purchase. Likewise, if you have an outdated or poorly built website, make this upgrade a priority. Having a hard to navigate, messy website can be worse than not having one at all if you portray an un-professional brand when new clients visit your site. Whether you are starting from scratch or want to revamp your current website, here are some important guidelines:

1. Responsive Website – A responsive website is easily readable across any device (mobile, tablet and desktop) with minimum resizing and panning to view. More people view digital content on mobile devices then desktops, so be sure your website can handle all types of devices beautifully.
2. Consistent Branding –Modern, Traditional, Eclectic – be sure the style of the website is consistent with your brand.
3. Professional Look – You need professional, high resolution logos and pictures. Be consistent with font used, colors for headlines, buttons and text.
4. Contact Form – Consumers like anonymous contact. Include an email address or a contact form so new clients can send a quick note to start the initial conversation with you.
5. Customer Testimonials – This is a perfect avenue to share personal stories of how you have succeeded and this will resonate extremely well with potential new customers.
6. Geography – If you are a service company, be sure to include a description of the geography you cover. If you are a product company, highlight how far your products have traveled to customers.
7. Eye Catching Headline – People don’t typically read all the content on your page, so make sure the headline tells them what this page is about and why they should invest time on it.
8. Call to Action – “Buy Now” or “Call Today” are examples of a clear call to action. Make sure people know what to do next to engage with your business.

If you don’t know where to start as it relates to a website, visit the sites of some of your favorite companies. Find a few that you feel reflect the right style and tone you want to convey for your business. Bring those ideas to a web developer and they should be able to take it from there!