10 Things Small Businesses NEED TO KNOW Before Creating a New Website
When you’re searching for someone to build a new website for your business, what do you need to be looking for? And where do you need to look? We’ve spoken to hundreds of businesses who often have problems with their new websites that we believe could have been avoided - so here’s a list of 10 things you must think about if you’re planning on building a new website.
1. Use the Right Website Developer.
A website doesn’t need to just be beautiful, it needs to be functional.
Some website developers are extremely good at what they do, but aren’t necessarily designers. Similarly, you may find a graphic designer who has a talent for website design, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the website will function well.
Google needs to be able to read your website and understand the way it’s functioning; this involves everything from navigation to the content of the pages themselves. The site needs to make sense to the people who click on it, and if it doesn’t, Google won’t show it to people at all. If you’re not appearing on a search engine what’s the point in having a beautiful website in the first place?
Giving power over such an important aspect of your business to someone you don’t know well can be intimidating, but it’s worth it in the long run as long as the person is reputable and has experience, or has been referred by others. Finding examples of websites you like and even making a mockup of your ideas yourself can make it easier for a developer to execute your vision.
If you think you’re ready to hire a website developer and want more details on how to do it right, there’s an article here which can help you hire the right person for your needs.
2. Use the right website CMS / Platform
Wordpress, Wix, and Squarespace are some of the more well known platforms for website building. There are positives and negatives about all of these services, and although on the surface they may seem similar, some of the smallest differences can have the most impact.
If you’ve already hired a website developer, this is a conversation you can potentially have with them. It’s important to consider features for SEO, blogs, photos - and, if you’re selling online you’ll want to be thinking about e-commerce.
For example, Shopify is known to have great e-commerce features, but their SEO features are still not quite there yet. Wordpress is well known for its flexibility and often familiar to the majority of developers. Of course, there are also platforms (like Squarespace) that sit somewhat in the middle.
It’s important to know what purpose your website needs to serve, so that the platform you choose can do the hard work for you.
We strongly encourage you to make a list of important features for your website, and then do some research to work out which platform will best suit your needs.
3. Make Sure you can Edit your Own Website!
Being able to edit your own website is critical, especially for small businesses. Many of our clients have mentioned that they have to contact their website developer simply to change a heading or image, taking time...and unfortunately £££.
This, especially for small businesses, is not sustainable, and in the long run incurs big costs which can easily be avoided - if you’re paying for a car to be built, you expect to get the keys afterwards!
Being able to quickly log in to your chosen platform, edit a little text and add an image, means mistakes can be fixed and updates can be made on your terms; you can upload new products and blogs to your site without having to go through another person, meaning greater control over your launches.
If you’re not particularly adept with technology, this is something to consider when you choose your website’s platform.
Many services have easy to use drag and drop systems, and are more user friendly than others; you can also have your website developer talk through the process with you so that you feel confident making edits yourself. We believe every website build should finish with a comprehensive hand-over, so don’t forget to tell your developer, that’s what you expect in the end.
4. Ensure your Design Works Well for New Customers
A quirky design might look great, but if it’s not easy to navigate, customers might not spend long looking at it or they may just become confused and lost in your online, unintentional maze.
You want a customer to know who you are and what you do from the moment they load the page. From there, it needs to be easy to get to the information they need, as well as to reach out to you personally. As stated before, contact forms are a key part of your website - it’s important for people to know that there is a real person behind your company who will respond to them.
5. SEO: Give Google the Best Chance of Understanding your Content
Google trawls your website and looks at it one page at a time.
To make sure Google can clearly understand what you do, you should dedicate a page to each service you offer; bunching all your content on to one page will just confuse the algorithm and lead to you not ranking so highly.
It’s important to try and tailor the keywords on each page to the service you’re referencing, which should naturally happen if you have a page for each service. There will always be a few similar keywords appearing on different pages around your website of course, but do your best to optimise as best you can - work your content and optimise each page individually!
We have a blog that goes over on-page SEO in more detail if you want to learn more.
6. Research what Type of Content your Competitors Have
If you are aware of competitors who are ranking particularly well (and you should be!) then looking at the way their site is structured can give you a head start.
For example, healthcare websites often have far more text than they do videos or images they will often describe in detail and long-form paragraphs, specific topics as well as having bullet points to outline their services. It’s important to know what customers and Google are expecting to see from a brand in your sector when they land on your website - customers are likely to be comparing multiple businesses, and you want yours to be a front runner.
You can also look at the way competitors have approached their site navigation. The likelihood is that they’re ranking well because Google can read their site easily as well as having relevant, high quality content, so if you can structure your website in a similar way, Google will hopefully favour your website too!
7. Mobile Optimisation
People do a lot of internet browsing on their mobiles - you want to make sure your website looks just as good when a customer loads it on mobile as it does on a desktop.
Not all platforms will automatically optimise for mobile browsing, so that’s another point to consider when deciding on a platform to use. Make sure that you’re checking your website on your phone yourself, and decide if you would be able to easily navigate around the site. If not - make changes!
If you need more information, you can find 6 tips to help you nail mobile optimisation here.
8. Use REAL content, not duplicated text or stock images.
Authenticity is key. Not only is Google constantly looking out for what could be copied content or dodgy businesses, but so are customers. Google will eliminate anything it deems to be a scam or spammy from searches because they know customers won’t respond well.
For example, the web pages that reference your services should only include authentic images and content - this doesn’t just help your SEO, but also helps establish credibility with customers. Most people can spot a stock image a mile away, and you don’t want them to associate laziness or lack or transparency with your services.
On blog pages the occasional royalty free stock image is acceptable, especially to break up text, but the actual content of the blog should be original; definitely not copied from other websites!
9. Reporting: Install Google Analytics for Free!
Whatever you do, you need to be able to measure the impact of it. Being able to see the way customers choose to navigate your site gives you the ability to optimise it even further, as well as remove any unnecessary pages that customers never click on.
Understanding the way traffic flows through your site and being able to measure your conversions is crucial - Google Analytics is a free service, and considering it offers so much to your digital marketing strategy, there’s no reason not to get it!
We highly recommend that you take a course on how to use Google Analytics, or at least do some further reading on what it can offer you.
10. Test, Double-Check and Triple Check your Website Works
Once you’re happy with the way everything is looking, it’s time to get testing.
Try filling out your contact forms, check your pages to make sure that no drafts have gone live, make sure your navigation works properly, and ensure that no links result in a 404 error.
Services like Screaming Frog can trawl your website for you and show you a map of how your website functions, as well as making any errors on the site obvious to you.
Building a website is a huge step for a business - hopefully you now feel a little more equipped to get started!
If you have any remaining questions or queries or think you’d like help overseeing your new website build - get in touch with us and we’ll make sure you’re making the right decisions for your business.