Website Design for Small Businesses

by Alex Roderick

Designing for any online business is a vital and serious issue as it says a lot about the business, its owners and product or services. It is the thing which keeps a customer on a website and its easiness compels and convinces him to buy a product. So its important to have a professional look.

No doubt launching a website for small business is a hilly task. To achieve it you better do some research on your needs; the site purpose, the target audience and finally look for skilled website designers, developers and graphic designers or a designing company. There are many different website design companies, offering different facilities. However for gaining an effective internet presence what should be the look of site of small businesses? This article will guide you in understanding the structure for your site specific design. Keep this article as a reference point. When you go through the process of development then check out each part to have an effective web site for your products and services in accordance with your target audience.

Choosing web designer- Dont go by the cheap web design. This will certainly diminish your professional image among potential customers other than financial losses. To have a professional web design, don't compare web designers by their price; always look at your requirements regarding the type of service, internet marketing and updates you needs w.r.t. growth.

Domain Name

Choose simple, short and relevant domain name for your site. Dont get settle down on anything to get your web space as every word on your web site has relevancy in its success. Being a serious online venture you should register it for at least two years. You can get your own domain name by paying as little as $ 17-18 for 2 year registration with ICANN approved sites such as Register . You can find out if the name you want is still available by using the free search tool on the sites.

Web Hosting

Web hosting can be obtained free of cost from content portal sites such as Yahoo! Geocities . Such sites invite users to establish Web sites on their domain in order to create a critical mass of core content on their online property. The user does not have to pay for service because it is subsidized by banner advertising. As they do not charge, they offer limited service depth and relative quality. They do not even provide customized hosting services where domain names are personalized.

So, avoid getting lured by the free hosting providers as nothing is really free. It mostly retards the downloading speed of web pages. Even avoid messing around with small time web hosting. Affiliate yourself with a reputable company that provides top-notch service and have the resources to provide fast and reliable servers.

Text Content

Content of the site deserves utmost attention as its the words that people read, its the words that call people to action, and its the words that sell. The rest also helps, but a site with poor content is an as bad as a site without any words.

Keywords

Order to end up high on search engine use the relevant keywords and place them accordingly on a web page. The number of times each word appears on a web page is the factors that determine how high you end up in search results.

Regarding resolution

Sure that your pages should work at any resolution, from 800x600 to 1280x1024 and beyond. Currently the most widely used screen size is 1024 x 768. Of course, the general guideline is to optimize for your target audience's most common resolution, so the size will change in the future. You shall see the statistics for the month of January for the last 2 years provided by w3schools seem to reflect the general trend we are seeing on the Web.

Year Higher 1024 x 768 800 x 600 640x 480 Unknown

2007(January) 26% 54% 14% 0% 6%

2006(January) 17% 57% 20% 0% 6%

Its always safer to keep your web site at less than 750 pixels wide as you dont want to alienate your visitors by having them scroll to see the whole page. Make sure that that your web pages show up the same in all web browsers.

HTML Tags

You will have to make sure that your title, description, and keyword meta tags are bang on with the text on each web page you build. The linking structure of your website should have to be good as its easy for the visitors as well the search robots to understand the details. All of your optimized pages must be linked from the home page itself.

Graphics

Its good to place web graphics in context with the information being presented. If you have product descriptions on your web site, then you should have the related graphic depiction next to them. Avoid using graphic that has no any relation with your text. Overusing graphics will only make the site look amateur. Make sure if you use web graphics as links that they work at all times. There is nothing worse than clicking on a graphic that does not work.

Conclusion

Basic tips for small business website are just the tip of the iceberg. You should also have to provide correct contact information plus regular updating w.r.t. your products; which I already explain in detail in my earlier articles. Web design can make or break your business. So always remember to create a site that is appealing and easy to navigate.

Your website should be like an investment and for that you are certainly going to receive a return.