Tips for good small business web design

I’ve come  across a great article on tips for good small business web design.  Written by  Craig Reardon from  Smart Company there 6 are factors to consider when developing, or having someone develop for you, your small business website. And why are these tips for good small business web design important?  Here’s Craig’s view:

It’s a well-known fact that smaller businesses are far more susceptible to costs arising from poor web design than their

Tips for good small business web design

Tips for good small business web design

deeper-pocketed competitors.

Because if an issue does arise with their website, unlike larger business, they are less likely to have either the financial power to overcome the issue or the time taken to properly research and manage a solution to it.

As a result, many smaller business operators “put up” with a dated or ineffective website simply because they can’t afford the time or money to rectify it. You only need to conduct a search of a smaller business category to witness the number of sites that fit this description.

 

Tips for good small business web design

Basically the 6 factors ( in summary ) are:

  1. [list style=”arrow”]
    • Presentation, yes how a website looks is important to get readers engaged, but……
    • Communication. Its the content , which keep users on the site
    • Techinal features. How easy is it to move around the site.
    • Usability, both for customers and website administrators
    • Maintainability. Is the website administrator able to make changes quickly and easily to keep the site looking up to date
    • Scalability. Growth is an important aspect of  most small businesses, and websites need to be able to grow with the business. This could be the addition of new features etc.

    [/list]

I think one factor overlooked by many small business owners is scalability. Craig puts it well here:

A scalable (or extensible) website platform will save you a very considerable sum on the technology features you will require as your requirements and visitor demands grow.

A good web professional will build or provide your website in a way to be able to add new features very affordably as you need them. But others might conveniently neglect this capability and charge what can be large amounts to add them “after the fact”.

Of the six website attributes, this is the one that will keep your website affordable as your needs grow and avoid the issues raised above.

So when you are looking to hire a web professional, make sure you check their track record with all of these six attributes and not just the one that can make your website look good. To view the full post click here

Have you previously considered the factors outlined  in our tips for good small business web design? Or have you had any issues with websites that have not lived up to your expectations or any more to add we would love to here your stories.

 

 

 

Small Business Help – use Yelp for better local internet search results

In my last post we looked at how to use Yelp for better local internet search results.

small bsiness seo tips - use yelp small business help.ifo

using Yelp can help your small business seo

This was the quick and easy process of claiming you local business listing. Now to turbo charge your listing you need to get reviews. As Jon writes on Noobpreneur.com ‘But the most useful part of Yelp is the review section that allows customers to leave reviews for others to read.’

Why use Yelp for better local internet search results

Even if your website already ranks on page one of Google for your local search terms, wouldn’t it be nice to have more than one listing on that page?  Yelp ranks very well for local search terms, and often business’ pages on Yelp are showing up on the first page of the search results as well.  This will give you two ways for a searcher to find your business and it will give your website more traffic. [Read more…]