Austin web design is the real deal.
There comes a time in every entrepreneur’s life where you need to revisit what makes a small business website outstanding.
Whether it’s optimizing your current website or building your first one, your website needs to do it all: represent your business, connect to your social media, climb to the top of search engine results, capture leads and close sales.
However, before you get into the nitty-gritty of building or revamping your website, you need to know how to set yourself up for success.
To help you get started, our professionals at Parrot Digital put together 10 proven tips for small business web design.
1. Prepare a Website Strategy
According to G2Crowd’s 2019 Small Business Statistics, 83% of small business owners recognize having a website gives them a marked advantage over competitors without one.
92% of small business owners also believe it’s the most effective digital marketing strategy.
Strategy is certainly the keyword here. Without one, your website is going to struggle to support lead generation.
When working on your website strategy, make sure it answers the following questions:
- Who is my audience and what are their pain points – the information my website needs to give my clients?
- What are my goals for my website?
- Which features are critical, which are simply “nice to have,” and which should I avoid?
- Where else do I have an online presence and how do I connect them to my website?
- How am I going to use web analytics to measure my success?
2. Have a Clear Page Hierarchy
Your page hierarchy is what helps visitors navigate your site. Start with your home page at the top, stemming out to some top-level pages.
Using our Austin web design Parrot Digital website as an example, our top-level pages are “About,” “Services,” “Case Studies,” “Portfolio,” “The Squawk Box” (our blog section), and “Contact.”
An easy cheat is to group your content beneath these top-level pages according to theme and importance. Implementing breadcrumb navigation will make it even easier for visitors to find what they’re looking for!
3. Simplicity is Key
It’s tempting to incorporate flashy visuals and in-depth detail on every page – but ultimately, this complicates your web design, creating more work for you and less appeal for your target market.
Our 6 Blogging Tips for Small Businesses offers the perfect recipe for simplicity that can be applied to your whole website.
4. Use Well-Defined Calls-to-Action (CTAs)
Don’t be coy – when you use a CTA, make sure it’s well-defined. Phrases like “sign up,” “get in touch,” or “book your reservation now” are clear and to the point.
Of course, you don’t want to confuse CTAs with advertising pitches either. Once again, simplicity is key!
5. Make Your Design Pop
It all starts with the template theme you choose for your website.
But that’s not the end of the story. Here are a few other things to consider for making your web design stand out:
- Use dynamic typography
- Be a minimalist
- Use animation(s)
- Incorporate geometric shapes
- Keep accessibility in mind
6. Accessibility
Small Business Trends points out “Having a site that isn’t mobile-optimized can drive away customers, hurt your SEO, and look unprofessional.” With up to 70% of all web traffic happening on a mobile device, that’s not a truth you can afford to ignore.
Yet most small businesses do. Don’t fall for the trap – make sure your template theme allows for automatic mobile-optimization and double-check using Google’s mobile-friendly test tool.
7. Add Social Media Icons
Not only should you be creating social media content, you should make it easy for your readers to share your web content on their social media too. It’s great for organic search ranking.
Speaking of which…
8. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is the art of optimizing your website pages for organic search. Search engines like Google have complex ranking algorithms with as many as 200+ factors.
Nobody really understands those algorithms, but we do know some ways to get on its good side. It’s a highly complex topic, so we suggest you take a look at our articles on local SEO and SEO vs. PPC to get started.
9. Have a Privacy Policy in Place
Your privacy policy isn’t a “nice to have” – it’s practically a legal requirement. This is where you explain things like the way your website records, uses, manages and whether or not it discloses user information.
10. Don’t Forget About Online Security
Last, but definitely not least, you need to look out for your own online security too. Hackers tend to target small business websites particularly because most fail in this very important step.
Take a look at A Small Business’s Guide to Online Security for everything you need to know.
Conclusion
Feeling a little overwhelmed? Don’t worry – Parrot Digital Marketing is the perfect solution for Austin web design! Check out our list of services and request your free SEO consultation today.
Thank you so much for such an informative piece of information.