Your business website is a fundamental part of your marketing mix. But there are several elements that you need to consider when creating a website, not least web navigation, design, web copy and readability. You may be looking to build your site yourself, or you may be looking to employ the skills of a web developer, designer or digital copywriter. Whatever type of website you’re aiming to create, there are certain things you need to think about before you get started.
Make sure your website stands out from the crowd
Want to find out how to make sure your website stands out from the crowd? Take a look at these top tips on creating a successful business website that will bring you great results:
1. Website Navigation
It’s important that your website is easy to navigate. In this instance simplicity is often key. An all-singing all-dancing site is fine, as long as it’s intuitive for the user attempting to navigate it. For this reason, you need to ensure that all the website sidebars, widgets and footers are integrated sensibly and work well alongside each other. It’s also important that your pages inter-link logically. Consider using a free website builder such as WordPress, Weebly, Moonfruit or Wix and if in doubt, speak to a web developer.
2. Website Design
The colours, fonts, styles, and graphics of your website all need to work together to create a professional look to show off your business in the best possible way. This means whether you’re designing the site yourself, or using a designer it’s important to consider the layout of each page, the images used across the entire website, and the design techniques that enable users to navigate the site. You will need to think carefully about whether to use things like pop-up windows or Flash-based graphics, as these can be a turn off for many people.
3. Website Copy
As far as your website is concerned, content is king! Web copy may be one of the last things you think about when planning your website, but it’s possibly the most important. Good web copy can make or break a website, for various reasons. Your web copy not only helps to sell your business or organisation to potential customers, it also helps people to navigate your site, by linking pages with internal links. The other reason web copy is so vital is because of the way it affects your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). So you’ve got a beautifully designed, easy-to-navigate website. Now what? SEO is vital in terms of getting your site seen. By utilising keywords that are specific to your industry area, the copy on your pages can help your website rank highly with search engines.
4. Readability
Now you’ve got your well-written copy, it’s important that it’s easy to read. People read online text differently to how they might read printed copy, by scanning the page. This means it’s a good idea to break the page up with bullet points and sub-headings. You should also avoid light-coloured text on a dark background, as this tends to be very difficult to read. Similarly, justified text creates a big block of text that is difficult to read, meaning people will end up either skipping sentences, or having to re-read them.
Do you have any tips for creating a successful business website? If so leave a comment below and let me know. And for help with your web copy or SEO copywriting, drop me a line today.