Small Business Web Site: Three Basic Design Tips

March 17, 2010

The success of your small business on the Internet will depend mostly on the how effectively your web site can grab and retain visitors’ attention. Remember, visitors will not know you have great products or services if your small business web site cannot grab their attention. Once they’re on your web site, your site’s content must be able to provide information that your visitors want so you can keep them on your web site (and get them to buy your products or services).

Here are three web design pointers that you can follow to help ensure that your small business web site can grab and retain your visitors’ attention.

Tip 1: Catch the Attention of Readers
Make the homepage stand out and immediately capture the attention of visitors. You can do this by using striking colors, fonts, and images, which complement the business theme — it gives web sites visitors an immediate idea of what the web site is about.

The colors and images that make up a small business web site have the critical role of conveying the company branding and the impression a web site visitor will take away from the site. The other pages should then focus on the written content, making sure that the content are not overshadowed by the too much graphics.

Tips 2: Balance Images and Text on the Web Site
Balance is necessary because, more often than not, visitors are more interested in the content rather than pictures. Many small business web sites have an abundance of images and graphics, while some have too few. The former can be considered visual overload and, therefore, distract the readers from the true purpose of the web site. Others are too desolate, making the web site seem too bland.

Try to keep colors at a reasonable number to complement the company logo and the homepage — I personally try to limit web site colors to three to four colors.

With regards to images and graphics, add these to the pages by inserting attractive headers and logos but utilize simple graphics for everything else. The sidebars and navigation tools are an important component of any web site. These should be simple and easy to use with easily identifiable buttons located on only one side of the page. Scattering these will probably just confuse readers and scare them off.

Tip 3: Publish Content That Help Your Visitors
Once you’ve gotten your readers’ attention, it’s time to get them to the meat of your small business web site — the written material. Many people aren’t keen on reading novel-like content on a single web site page. Therefore you should avoid using long paragraphs, and instead use short sentences or bullet points which are concise, easy to understand but are still able to deliver the necessary information.

Remember that the importance of any web site is its content. But for people to be interested in that, the first challenge is therefore to get the attention of visitors, the next is and maintaining their interest.


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