subject: Business Website design and tips [print this page] Business Website design and tips Business Website design and tips
In the business world websites should be a representation of your business and what you offer to potential customers or clients. You really need to think about the sort of people you want to attract and tailor your website for them. If your target market is young people then make your website attractive to them with a cool funky design, but simple to use. If your want to bring in the masses, meaning every type of person then you will need a more simplistic design which is easy to use and is both aesthetically pleasing to most people. Obviously you won't be able to please everyone one but if you go for a simple design and focus on content you will be on the right track.
Stay away from tacking flashing graphics and text, they can be off putting and make people click the back button before you have even got your message across. Stay away from Flash design. Flash is ok in small doses but the most important thing to know about Flash is that search engines can't read it. So if you want to be found in search engines forget Flash, except for banners and logos.
Social media is big and only getting bigger, so make sure you have your titter and face book page advertised. There are many free widgets that allow you to add a bit of code to your site which will give users the options to bookmark them or share them with face book or twitter.
If you already have a website but feel the design is letting you down, try a new design and check the visitor stats. Try a few designs over a few months and compare visitor stats to see if any particular design keeps people on the site longer.
Today we live in a web-based world which has many pros and cons. The pros are that we are now connected with the world more than ever before. On the negative there are so many websites that unless yours offers something unique it will easily be missed. How are you supposed to compete against 40 million other webpage's? Well quite simply... Be the best. Offer something your competitors don't. Make sure your website is the best internet resource in your industry.
One important aspect about a website is making is search engine friendly. There is little point building a site if search engines can't find it. The best way to do this is to print your webpage's and look at them. Does each page scream at you with what it's about? Can you see within 5 seconds what the page is about? If you can then a search engine will also. The biggest mistake most people make when building websites is calling each page the company name. For example if your business is called Clayton Carpets make sure each page has a unique title and heading. This sounds simple and obvious but you check your website now. Look at the very top of the browser which is where you will also see your browser name and see what words are up there. If you look at a page which sells wool carpets, the title of the page should say something like Wool Carpets in London. (or whatever area you live in). Check each page? This is known in web design as the title meta tag. Writing these well is probably one of the most important things you can do for your website in terms of getting in found in the search engines.
