Just a decade or two ago, a small business’s marketing plan needed only to include taking an ad out in the phone book to be effective. Now, regardless of the goods or service that you provide, having a responsive website is essential for your business to survive. Studies show that 81% of purchases are researched online, whether or not they are ultimately made in person. Almost half of consumers (46% to be exact) admit that a company’s web design is the biggest factor in determining their credibility — small business owners can’t get away with using a free website template anymore.
Even if your business is cleaning swimming pools, it is critical to have a responsive website in order to gain clients and keep them, but you might not know where to start with building a great website. To help you out, we put together a quick list of effective web design tips for non-techies:
Make it fast. When you get a potential customer to visit your website, you have three seconds of load time before 40% of them abandon it. If it takes more than four seconds to load, you will lose almost your entire audience. If your page takes more than eight seconds, you can just forget about it.
One critical sin that slows your website down is trying to throw too much on your landing page. If your visitor has to twiddle their thumbs, waiting for the page to load while the scroll bar gets smaller and smaller and smaller, you will always lose them.
Make the take-away obvious. You want the goal of your landing page to be easy to understand within five seconds of a visitor coming to your website. Do not put loads of copy on your landing page, it will distract visitors and make your primary goal less obvious. Make your landing page a welcoming mat that invites your visitors to explore other links on your website.
Include a call to action. Any professional web design and development company you talk to is going to suggest including a call to action on the top of your page. A call to action is a button that your visitors use to take action. Links such as, ‘Buy Now,’ ‘Contact Us,’ and ‘Get a Free Quote Now’ are common calls to action. Most experts recommend including your call to action above the fold. To non-techies, the term ‘above the fold’ just means making sure your call to action is in the area viewers can see without touching the scroll bar.
Establish trust with your visitors. The World Wide Web is full of businesses, and some have poor business practices that have turned online users into skeptics. Building online trust is a great way to establish credibility for your company and gain business. If your website is relatively new and you don’t have the brand recognition or online reputation to establish trust by your name alone, an easy way to establish trust with your potential clients is by featuring certification from a well-known online source that users already trust, such as PayPal or Angie’s List.
Stay current. A common motto in the web design industry is, ‘Content is King.’ Having current content on your website will make or break it. Consumers are savvy enough to recognize if you put your website together in 2005 and haven’t touched it since. Search engines use the date your website was last updated as a factor in listing it in its search results.
A great way to keep the content on your website current is by featuring a blog with topics that are relevant to your market. Your blog will also give search engines lots of keywords that help them find you. If you are in the pool cleaning business and are experiencing a mini anxiety attack at the thought of creating an engaging blog, don’t despair. Many responsive website design companies can also inexpensively create content for a blog, so that you can just focus on what you do best.
Do you have any questions about creating a responsive website? Please feel free to contact us, we would love to help you out.