Must Have Features of Every Small Business Website

A strong online presence is a must for any businesses, irrespective of their size. Customers of today wish to evaluate the business and each and every product or service that is available; it is your responsibility to make sure you cater to every whim and wish of your customers in the easiest possible manner.

Almost every business has a website today; but not all of them have the kind of visibility or traffic they wish to achieve. It all depends on how you design your website and optimize it so as to generate leads on an everyday basis. Here are a few must-have features you should be sure to include on your business website:

Header Content:

•       Easy Domain name: Make sure your domain name is simple and easy to remember, while representing your business in the best way possible. It is also the number one keyword so, beside to select one that works for your industry.

•       Logo: Logo is often the face of your business. Simple is always better. Be sure it’s readable from a distance and with different color backgrounds.

•       Tag-Line: Many businesses often miss out on taglines. However, it is very important to add a tagline just below your logo which represents what your business does, in a very catchy manner.

•       Phone number: Without a phone number your business may not look genuine enough to your customers. Although the option of email is available it is always better to mention your phone number clearly on your website. Full contact info gives a sense of authenticity.

•       Call-to-action: This is the one that your customers will click to take the action you desire. This could be registering for an account, submitting their email address or buying your product or service. It needs to be clearly visible and recognizable enough for your visitors. Also make sure there aren’t too many of these. Each page should likely have only one call-to-action button, two if the page has large amounts of content.

•       Main Menu Navigation: Every website needs to have a main menu that is easy and clear to read and understand. The easier you make this, the simpler it will be for your user to navigate.  This is one feature that not only enhances the user experience but can also improve the ranking of your website on Google. Be sure to check it on many browsers and devices.

•       Bread-crumb navigation: Bread-crumb navigation should be just below your top navigation menu it can help the user in getting to know his location on your website and is also great for SEO.

Above the Fold Content:

•       Slider or image: Having a slider or an image that highlights the most distinguishing part of your business is key to first impressions. This could be the main headline of your business. It’s the first thing a visitor will see, make it count.

•       Contact business information: This part will contain the most important piece of information about your business that you want to give to your customers. This is how your customers will find your place of business.

•       Testimonials & Reviews: Video testimonials or reviews may make it more interesting for your visitors and this can also help in increasing conversions

Below-the-Fold Content:

•       Main Features: This section would contain  your products / services that you actually want to sell

•       Quality Content: This is the content that you will write for your users and the search engines. This will contain the unique points of your business and how it will benefit the users

•       Internal Links: This section should contain important links to the inner pages of your website

Footer Content:

•       Contact Information: This section will contain the address, telephone number and email ID of your business for your customers to contact you

•       Business Hours: The exact working hours of your store should be mentioned here. In case people would wish to contact customer support, it is important to mention the timings during which your support team will be available

•       Social Media Buttons: These are the buttons that will take your customers to your social media pages as in your Facebook page, YouTube Page, Google Plus Page and/or your Twitter Page.

•       Online Chat Features: In case you have an online chat feature enabled, you can mention the link here for customers to join you on online chat. This will help them clear their queries immediately and expedite your conversions.

•       Newsletter Sign-up form: This is where your visitors or customers will enter their email ID to subscribe

•       Footer Navigation: This will have all the links to the different pages of your website so that your customers can get to important areas of your site without the need of scrolling back to the top of the site.

Inner Pages:

•       Contact Us Page: This is one of your most important inner pages through which you can generate leads to your business. Also, this is the medium you offer for the customers to engage with you. It should ideally include a contact form and a captcha, which is an anti-spam feature

•       Personalized about us page: This will talk about your business, when it started, who started, what you do, your mission, your vision and your objectives.

•       Privacy Policy page: This is also one of the most important things that you need to include in your business website. This will help your customers be assured that their personal data will be safe on your website

•       FAQ Page: This page will have answers to a few common questions that will haunt the minds of your customers about your business. This will instantly clear most of the queries and improve your conversions

•       Blog Page: Every business should have a blog that gives information to the customers and to interact with its customers. This should ideally have a search feature, comment features, social media sharing buttons and a side bar that will show your popular blogs. One of the most important pages on a site for SEO.

The various other things you need to focus on are to include clear readable fonts and easily recognizable links and to make sure your website is mobile responsive. Do not include flash items or background audio on your website as this can decrease the speed of your website. It is better not to include self hosted videos and instead use YouTube links or the power of Vimeo. In order to make sure your website is search engine optimized make sure your website is cross-browser compatible and well-integrated with Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools.

UX factors that Can Influence the Visibility of Your Website

User Experience or UX is the main thing that comes into our mind when we decide to start a website. You may have been doing loads of testing and making changes in the design every now and then but unless your website manages to secure some ranking in some competitive keywords, it is of no use. This is possible only if you provide a quality user experience through your website. 

Now the very idea may sound a bit strange as most people still believe that there is no relation between the UX part of a website and its rankings. But things have changed lately. Search Engines more particularly Google is now treating signals like UX, Time Spent on A Page; bounce rate etc to judge the quality of a website and therefore, it has become imperative for web designers to give more attention to the UX part of the design. 

You may use the services of a professional web designer if you want to achieve effective results. You may find lots of web designing services in Pasadena too, by running an online search on “Pasadena web design.” Nevertheless, there are many tools and templates out there that can help you in designing your website all by yourself.

It may not be too difficult to gain a top ranking in the Search Engine Result pages if you employ a few tried and tested SEO techniques. However, if you want to maintain your ranking for a long time to come, User Experience or UX is one thing you must focus on. Better ranking will mean increase in your visibility and a remarkable boost to your sales. The main UX factors you need to focus on include:

Page Loading Speed

UX or User experience begins the moment a user clicks on the link to your website. If it takes too much time to load, the user will just close it and go on to the next link on the SERP (Search Engine Result Page). In fact as per a study conducted by Kiss metrics, the ideal loading time for a website is three seconds and every second after this might cost you a reduction of 7% in your sales. A page that loads faster will create a good impression in the minds of the users, while improving your SEO rankings. You can check your page speed by using the Page Speed Insights Tool of Google. 

Intuitive Site Organization

Not only should your website load fast, it should also help users access the various sections in a faster and an easier way. You need to design your Menus and Submenus effectively. You can have about 4 to 6 categories and then add on an “About Us” and a “Contact Us” page to help users understand your brand and reach out to you. Your visitors should be able to find things on your website easily and it shouldn’t take them more than one or two clicks to reach the correct section. One more thing you could do is put up internal links to help users pursue the topics or find posts easily and quickly. This will not only lower your bounce rates, but also increase your click-through rates and conversions.

Mobile Responsiveness

This is the main thing users look for today as maximum users use their smart phones to access websites. You need to make sure your website looks good and readable on all kinds of devices. You can use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test Tool to check if your website is mobile-responsive. If you get a negative result you need not give up. There are many mobile-responsive themes out there that can fix your problem. If you are a web developer, you could use the CSS3 Media queries to make your website mobile-responsive.

You need not worry about going to an SEO specialist to improve the ranking of your website. Concentrate on enhancing UX and you will be right there where you want to be.