Having a customer friendly website needs to be a core facet of doing business online. The moment a new person lands on your website they’re going to be looking for certain indicators of whether to stay or leave. If your site contains these features you’re going to have a better chance of actually converting this person into a new subscriber or customer.
In this post we highlight five can’t miss elements that your small business website needs to have if you want to succeed in the online space today.
1. Easy To Navigate
No one likes a complex navigation bar. When a person lands on your website you want them to calmly be able to figure out what to do next. By having a complex navigation bar that includes every single thing your business does, you’ll lead your visitor into analysis paralysis.
Make it easy for them to make a decision by only having 3-4 elements to choose from. The most common navigation elements include: home, about, blog, and services. Most other business elements can be contained within those pages.
2. Easy To Remember Domain Name
It can be tempting to try to come up with a catchy domain name. However, don’t sacrifice being easy-to-remember for being trendy or creative. Often, the simplest domain names will do the trick, don’t make it complicated.
Sill, the .com domain extension works the best for branding purposes. In some cases it can be beneficial to purchase the other domain extensions just in case a person can’t remember which extension is yours.
3. Accurate Contact Information
Make it easy for your visitor to get in touch with you. If they have to spend extra time searching for a way to reach you chances are they may just give up entirely and go to one of your competitors websites.
Also, make sure your contact information is up to date. This means you’ll need your email address to remain functional and your current in-person location to be fully up to date.
4. Testimonials
It’s easy to overlook the importance of collecting testimonials. However, a lot of people end up making decisions based upon testimonials or praise.
Without this page of your website people have no one to trust except for you. And if they just landed on your website you won’t have a lot of trust built up. Testimonials greatly speed up the process of developing trust.
5. Obvious Call To Action
You need to tell your website visitors what to do next. If you don’t tell them what you’d like them to do they’re just going to wander around your website, and maybe even click the back button.
If you want your visitors to sign up then tell them. If you want them to check out your blog, then suggest that. Determine the most logical course of action and gently nudge your visitors in that direction.
Redesigning your website doesn’t have to be difficult. Luckily, all of the elements mentioned above won’t take an entire website redesign to get right. If you’re interested in getting professional assistance with upgrading your small business website, then get in touch with our website design team today.
by Calvin Bryant
Digital Marketing Geek
Calvin Bryant
Calvin is a digital expert with clients in the U.S., U.K., and the Caribbean Islands. As the founder of C7, he has worked with Joel Osteen, Carlos Santana, the FBI, and the NBA. He resides in Ponte Vedra, Florida, and is a proud father and husband of 28+ years to his wife, Krista.