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Get the right business website
Creating a winning website is no longer a daunting prospect. Nowadays, with a DIY-style website package, you can even build a website yourself in around 30 minutes.
Mark Jeffries, chief technology officer at Fasthosts Internet, describes the nuts & bolts of an effective website design:
The first thing to decide is broadly what type of website you need. You can choose a regular static website or a Flash website that has animations. While Flash websites can look very impressive, visitors with a slow connection may face slower loading speeds.
The use of elaborate design or animations will largely depend on whether the website is intended to be easy and functional or big and brash.
Spend time thinking about the structure of your website. Customers may be frustrated if they have to search a maze of pages to find what they need.
List the top five purposes of the website and then have a direct link to these from the left of your Homepage. Place your most important pages at the top of the menu and remember that visitors scan most thoroughly the top and bottom of web pages.
While design can be largely subjective, a good business website strikes the right balance between form and function. Provide a short, informative introduction that describes the main points of the website.
The best sites are useful, easily referenced and enjoyable rather than just a pretty design. With colours, similar to decorating a house, use common sense and avoid overly garish or dull. Remember, attention to detail is vital – spelling mistakes will discredit your business, so spell check all copy before it’s published.
A vital aspect from the start is the domain name you use. Choose a domain name that portrays the business function and remember less obvious suffixes such as .biz, .org, and .net, which still have lots of first-choice names available.
The most attractive aspect for a customer is the ability to interact with your business. Your contact details should only ever be one click away. Your web host can provide tips on communication tools which will allow you to talk to your visitors. These could include chat channels, forums or one-to-one live dialogue boxes.
Use features that make a difference. Online photo galleries are an ideal way to showcase products. Another popular feature is a ‘business blog’, or an online collection of thoughts and opinion on your company, industry or local area which allows your customers to engage with you.
The speed of your website is also important. If your website is too slow, your visitors may give-up in favour of a competitor’s site so always partner with a web host with good connectivity. Additionally, one of the biggest challenges can be trying to achieve a website that looks as professional as a large mainstream site. Royalty-free images are a good way and a good source is www.fotolia.co.uk, which has thousands of images from only £1.
Maximise your website as a business development tool. A sign-up form within your website is essential to collect email addresses so you can later contact your visitors.
A good method of doing this is a newsletter, and website packages these days provide you with a template-driven newsletter tool to help you. Otherwise, you can download free newsletter tools from the internet.
Your website should look to include some ‘live content’, whether it is news feeds, weather, route planners, maps etc. This will enhance the appearance, credibility and functionality of your website, and mean a greater chance your visitors will return.
‘RSS feeds’ are a great way to do this as they bring ‘live’ external content directly to your site. Most web hosts can help you to create these.
There are also important issues surrounding access to your website that you should consider. The latest Disability Act requires business websites to be accessible to the disabled so keep in mind the needs of the visually impaired by not crowding pages and keeping fonts to a sensible size.
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