Building & launching a business website can be a daunting task. Here are the Top 8 website design tips to remember when launching your new business website.
There is so much to pull together during the website design process, including copy, images, hosting plans, domain names, etc.
So much so that sometimes small things fall through the cracks.
Unfortunately, some of those small things can make a big difference in the success of your new website. That’s why it’s important to take a moment before you launch and run through the list of often-forgotten elements that can be addressed quickly.
Here are the Top 8 elements I see missed most often with new small business website launches:
1. SEARCH ENGINE META DATA
It’s important to have a unique Title and Meta Description tag on every single page of your website. Whether you have 5, 50 or 500 pages, taking the time to create a unique tag will make a big difference to the end result.
Not only do unique title and description tags help improve organic search rankings, but they are also what is seen first by your potential customers. When your site is listed in search engine results pages (also referred to as SERPs), it’s these titles and descriptions that display.
Many new small business websites simply repeat the home page title and meta description on every page. This is a bad idea. Not only because there isn’t anything unique or specific to that search and that page, but it also gets flagged as duplication.
Users often scan search results looking trying to decide which link(s) to click on. Your title and description needs to catch a searchers attention during this cursory scan.
2. SECURITY & PRIVACY
Another area of website design that is often overlooked is the security and privacy of your potential customer.
It doesn’t matter if you are running a full-scale ecommerce checkout or have a simple registration form on your site. As soon as you are planning on capturing unique and identifiable customer information, you need to protect that information.
SSL Certificates encrypt all the data you exchange and creating a secure connection between your customer and your site. And for what they do, they are a relatively low-cost investment. Costs usually ranging from $25 for a shared certificate or $69 – $99 for a dedicated one. More and more hosting plans are offering a free shared SSL certificate because of the importance of this signal.
If you are capturing anything more than the potential customer’s name and email address, you should invest in an SSL certificate. Even if all you are only capturing are name and email address, you should invest in an SSL certificate.
Sites that have an SSL Certificate installed will display both a “Locked” icon beside the URL and will often display the actual certificate seal on the site. Both of these elements boost customer confidence when interacting with your site.
You should also include a Privacy Policy on your site, detailing how personally identifiable information is used and shared.
3. LOCATION, LOCATION
If you have a physical location or a specific service area, it is critical that you optimize your location for search engines. More and more people are searching for products and services “Near Them.”
“Restaurant Near Me”, “Gas Station Near Me” will require search engines to understand WHERE you are to understand if you are – in fact – near the customer who is currently searching for you.
Even without including the “Near Me” keywords, search engines these days are becoming more proactive by showing results that are closer to home, especially when searching for something with a physical presence.
Devices with location services enabled will often prioritize nearby results. And voice-assisted searching (such as Siri, Alexa, and Google Home) have increased this exponentially via location services.
Search for Pizza and you will likely be shown results that highlight local pizza parlors or the closest franchise for nationwide operations.
4. ANALYTICS
Measuring the performance of your new website design is important to understand – as your site grows – what’s working, what’s not and how people are using your site.
Even if you don’t have time – at this exact moment – to review the information, start gathering the data. It’s important to signup for an account now and get the code on your site so that if and when you do have time, the data is there.
Another helpful analytical tool, particularly as it applies to your site’s Search Engine Optimization are the Webmaster tools offered by the major engines including Google and Bing.
- Google Search Console – https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
- Bing Webmaster Tools – www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster
By registering yourself as the Webmaster for your site, these tools will provide some unique insights regarding your site’s search engine friendliness, including any errors that could be stopping the search engines from indexing and displaying your site.
5. URL STRUCTURE AND NAMING CONVENTIONS
An important aspect of creating a website is deciding the structure and setting out – from the very beginning – to create relevant URLs. Even though it may be easier, naming your site pages as “domain.com/page1.html” etc. provides no advantage to the user or search engines.
Think about organizing your site like you would your own files. Make folders intuitive. Make page names intuitive.
Such as:
www.domain.com/topic-area-or-product-category/topic-or-product-name
But don’t go too deep into too many folders, such as
www.domain.com/blog/year/month/topic-area-or-product-category/topic-or-product-name
And never let a temporary URL become the permanent home of your content. You’d be surprised how often this happens by mistake.
I’ve seen -new, -updated, -temp, -draft IN final URLs. Rookie mistake.
If you do have to go back and retroactively fix some of these poorly formatted URLs, implement 301 redirects. This way the old URL points to the new URL. This is helpful for search engines as well as potential customers who may have bookmarked the old page.
This also applies to the naming of image files that you use on your site, as well as the appropriate use of alt tags.
Try to avoid using generic names such as image-1.jpg and use this opportunity to properly describe the image.
Alt tags provide a text description of the image, so they should also be used to properly describe the image. Some browsers will show this text when the user hovers over the image. Other browsers will only display this text if the image itself does not show up.
Either way, it’s an important aspect of image naming that should be considered.
6. MOBILE RESPONSIVE WEB DESIGN
According to TechCrunch, mobile usage as a whole accounts for 60% of time spent online. It is also estimated that 90% of internet users have mobile access. Therefore it is imperative that your website design be mobile friendly.
Most platforms and pre-built templates used these days employ some level of adaptability for various platforms. This includes desktops, tablets and smartphones.
However, if you do not consider this when building your site content and architecture, you can damage this responsive functionality.
It’s not always possible to QA your site in every browser and device variation available on today’s market. But there are tools that can help. If you need to do it manually, check your site on at least one of each type of device. That way, you can make sure that it looks clean, easy to read and professional.
7. FAVICON
A small but valuable piece of website design is that little Favicon that appears in the browser tabs bar. It is also what is used for most browser bookmarks.
This is often overlooked, particularly when using a set template developed by the website application you use. Although it’s small, it’s a valuable piece of branding that is very quick and easy to replace.
If you don’t, you could end up with the default provided by your platform. This is great for them – additional brand exposure – but it does very nothing for you and your business.
Can you tell what the three websites below have in common?
In case you didn’t guess, they are all built on SquareSpace.
8. SOCIAL MEDIA INTEGRATION
A very valuable aspect of your website is that it allows potential customers to engage with you. Expand on that engagement by providing easy-to-find links to your social media profiles, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.
Even if you aren’t able to program customized links on your site, a simple text reference can suffice.
For example, if you’re enjoying this blog article and follow me on Twitter at @ePaulStainton.
Or maybe you prefer Instagram? Or Facebook?
See how easy that was??
BONUS: THE 9TH WEBSITE DESIGN TIP – PATIENCE
Give your website time to get indexed by search engines and found by searchers. That Hollywood moment when a person launches a website and they are inundated with thousands of orders is just that…. Hollywood Fiction.
It takes time for your site to get indexed, found and visited… so don’t forget to give the site time to find and build its audience.