Simple Website Do's and Don'ts Every Business Should Follow

The great thing about the Internet is that company websites can be built by anyone. The bad thing is that company websites can be built by anyone. You can hire your friend's nephew, who did a site for his school band, or you can spend millions.

But whatever way you go, you need to ensure your company website design is attractive and inviting and, most of all, accomplishes your objective of increasing business.

Drawing a customer to your website is hard work: don't slam the door in their faces when they arrive!

Do: Discover what your goal is

Company websites can accomplish many jobs for you. Here are a few important things you might use your website for. Which of these website goals align with your needs?

• Generating leads
• Selling products
• Website conversions (i.e. subscribers, contact forms)
• Customer support
• Providing news
• Marketing

Pick your most important goals and let everything on the site follow this mandate. It's important to have a focus.

Don't: Try to do everything

Many businesses have a multitude of stakeholders who will insist their department should have a prominent spot on the homepage or navigation. Trying to satisfy multiple goals leads to a jumbled concept and design that will pull the customer in different directions, hurting your primary goal, such as a website conversion.

Give your customer one or two main goals to accomplish on your website. Don't overwhelm them with things they need to do, or they won't do any of them!

Do: Make it easy for your customers

Web data shows that people can arrive at and leave a company website within seconds if they're not satisfied with the website design, loading time or other key elements of your website. That means your website must showcase the information or product users are looking for immediately. That includes on mobile devices! If your website it outdated, it may be time to upgrade to a mobile website! <http://www.bloomtools.ca/mobile.html > Even if you have a great product customers love, a bad website can turn them off. Look for these problems:

• Website design is disorganized or outdated
• Has clashing colours
• Inaccurate copy
• Navigation that takes them away from your goal
• There are too many things for customers to do
• You don't have a clear call to action on every page

Don't: add elements to your site just because

It's cheap and easy to add icons, pictures, text boxes, banners, pop-ups, colours, font sizes, navigation and sub-navigation. But don't. Opt for a simple website design that has clear and easy to use design elements that highlight your product or services and allow potential customers to navigate easily toward a website conversion.

You want to make a great impression with your first client meeting, so you look and act professional, focused and authoritative. Make your website look the same. Often your website will meet potential customers before you do, so it's in charge of making the first impression!

Do: Routine maintenance and evaluation

Not only do ideas about web design change quickly, but web tools and software evolves as new technologies arrive and user behavior changes. In the same way, your business changes as you grow, you develop new services and products, and you seek out new customers. You should take a good hard look at your website every six months and determine whether it is still fulfilling your current mandate. Don't wait for traffic to fall off before deciding it's time to fix it.

Don't: Hide your calls to action

It's great to have a beautiful company website but don't let design elements mask your goal of getting customers from your homepage to a point where they buy a product or register as a lead. Make your calls to action bold and clear. Don't be afraid of being bold about promotions and sales. Your best clients and customers know you're a business and your aim is to generate revenue: there's no reason to be shy when asking users to do business with you. On the other hand don't be too overwhelming. A bold call to action is fine, but several can be confusing and off-putting.

If you need advice on how to enhance your company website and how to attract new customers, give your local Bloomtools consultant a call. We offer web design, email marketing and mobile website services.