Website Development

The internet is one of the most important communication tools you have in your marketing toolkit for the majority of small businesses.

A dynamic website that is regularly updated and well optimised will help potential customers find and become familiar with your business, understand your services and products and positively make a decision to buy from you. After all, these days it’s not so much a case of “let your fingers do the walking” as it is “I’ll go and Google that!”

Effective websites are not just about putting up pages of text and pictures and hoping that potential customers flock to you. Effective web design is really about marketing and it is essential that you define the objectives you have for your site before you approach a developer. Here are some key tips:

• You need to grab attention quickly! People scan websites and spend an average of 40 seconds on a page before making a decision to explore further or click off your site (bounce rate) so catch their attention with striking images, graphics and headlines.
• Navigation should be simple and intuitive. People will leave a website quickly if the navigation is confusing or if it takes too long to find what they are looking for
• A well designed site with quality graphics will boost customer confidence. If a visitor perceives your site as amateurish, they will move on. It’s also important for the images to be optimised for the web so they download quickly
• Place important information “above the fold” so people do not have to scroll to read it.
• Ecommerce websites should make online ordering fast, easy and secure.
• Give visitors a reason to come back by providing fresh content in a regular basis - Ensure your website developer provides you with a Content Management System so you can change and update your site content regularly
• Explain who you are, what you do, why you do it, and how they can contact you on the home page.
• Optimise your website to improve your organic Google results – this involves understanding the keywords your potential customers are searching under
• Track your traffic with Google Analytics

If you’d like to see how your site ranks visit http://websitegrader.com where you can input your URL and receive a fast and free evaluation – a very interesting exercise!