Effective Small Business Web Design
Your small business website is not an online brochure! It's an ongoing dialogue with the world!
Not only will we design an innovative Web site for you, we’ll create a functional, user-friendly site that grows your business and expands your reach.
Complete the form on the right to download the FREE GUIDE: The 7 Elements of Highly Effective Websites. (Special bonus inside worth $250)
Is Your Web Site Committing the 5 Deadly Sins?
Don’t spend your hard-earned money on ineffective website design! Many businesses spend upwards of tens of thousands of dollars on website design, only to be a complete waste because they’ve committed these deadly sins. Understanding these five deadly sins will help you make the best decision when choosing a Web design company to design your website. Also, feel free to download our FREE guide entitled The 7 Elements of Highly Effective Websites by completing the form on the right.
Web Design Sin #1 – No Clear Purpose
When creating a website for your business, you need to first know why you’re creating a website. Ask yourself these questions: What will a website achieve for my company? Who is my target audience and why would this audience visit my site? How will a website integrate with the marketing and advertising that I’m doing offline? You also want to decide upfront how you will measure the success of your site. You do this by setting goals such as the number of visitors, number of conversions, number of subscribers to blogs, etc. In essence, you’re starting by understanding the marketing objectives of your website. And you move to the strategy next.
Web Design Sin #2 – No Strategic Message
A message strategy is often the most overlooked, or even ignored, part of your site, and yet it’s the MOST IMPORTANT. Your strategic message is the content of your site, and it’s the most important because it’s what you’re conveying about your company that sets you apart from everyone else. Most Web design companies will ask YOU to provide the content, and still there are others out there who will write the content for you. However, since they’re usually designers, and not true marketing professionals, your website is bound to be chock full of words and phrases used by everyone else in your industry, which forces you to look and sound like everyone else. It also forces your prospects to make a buying decision on price.
At Omni Marketing, we write the content for you. After understanding more about your business, and knowing what sets you apart from your competitors, we create attention-grabbing copy that really connects with your customers, and gives them the information they need to make the best buying decision. This also includes writing the copy for your videos.
Web Design Sin #3 – No Clear Call to Action
The visitor should see a clearly defined “preferred” action to take on just about every section and page of your site. Get your visitors involved by encouraging them to do something: download a free report or whitepaper, enter a contest, or take a survey perhaps. You can’t increase the effectiveness of your website if the visitor does nothing. Remember this important point: Passive visitors don’t buy; involved visitors become customers.
Web Design Sin #4 – Outdated Coding & Technology Use
Based on current adoption rates, people who access the Internet from their mobile devices is expected to surpass those who access the Internet from a desktop computer by 2014. So, your website needs to be optimized for mobile access, which means all the pinching, spreading, and scrolling just to read the text on your site should be kept to a minimum.
Your website should be HTML5 compliant, which means it should contain NO Flash technology. HTML5 creates a more dynamic website that responds to visitors and allows them to enjoy or interact with your content…instead of just look at it. Your audio and video is sure to play, so your visitors can have the experience you intended them to have as they interact with your site.
Another must-have technology on your website is video. Nothing builds rapport, gets traffic, and makes sales like a good video! Forrester Research cites that one minute of video is worth 1.8 million words. Also, Google and other search engines give a higher ranking to video content than other forms of Web content.
Web Design Sin #5 – Outdated Content and Materials
Your Web design is a never-ending process. You should ensure that you or someone is always updating your site with current and relevant information. Updated information give users a reason to come back to your site. Updated content also helps your rankings with the search engines. Tip: Having a blog that is updated on a predetermined schedule is a great way to ensure that your site always has current and relevant content.
In summary, if you keep these five deadly sins in mind during the planning and building process, you’ll be on your way to creating an effective website for your business. And you can download our FREE guide, The 7 Elements of Highly Effective Websites (by completing the form on the right), to help your website creation process even more.
Omni Marketing Consultants would be happy to work with you to create a website strategy and design for your business that will drive traffic to your site, engage your audience, and achieve all of your site objectives. So, call us today for a website analysis. Get pricing and info on our small business Web design packages