As a parent who is running a home business, or even a small business with a physical location such as a storefront, you probably already know that it can be a lot to juggle. From having to take care of your personal life, manage the home and family, then you’re juggling your home business and what’s being thrown at you there. It’s a lot to handle from time to time, and it can even be considered a little too overwhelming from time to time. Regardless, running a business is one of the most rewarding things that anyone can do. Especially as a parent, it can hold a strong meaning because you’re proving that you can raise a beautiful family, manage your home, all while managing your successful business as well. Now, who wouldn’t want that?
With that said, when running a business, there is a lot that needs to be taken into account such as what you’re selling, how you’re marketing yourself, what you’re selling, the customer experience, and also your website. Nowadays, a website is one of the most important components of having a business.
This is how businesses get judged by their potential customers, there is how the business gets discovered thanks to SEO, and this is also where people can get information about your product or service. Nowadays, it’s totally rare for a business to be able to thrive without having a website. It’s a component that’s so needed that it simply cannot get overlooked.
This may sound tough to run your household, be there for your family, run your business, and try to run the website of your business at the same time. It can be a lot to take in. But in general, it’s going to be worth it, especially if you’re able to get around to taking your website to the next level.
Customers and your audience as a whole will love getting impressed. Having a beautiful website with impeccable design elements will strongly reflect your brand, and it will also excite your customers as well. So these are some helpful tips for taking your website to the next level so your business can really shine!
Ensure that your website loads quickly
Your website has to load fast! But how fast? Basically, very fast, try to aim for no more than three seconds to get your website fully loaded. The average shopper expects websites to be loaded up in full by two seconds or even less! It sounds wild, and it even sounds impossible right? Well, it most certainly can be done. Unfortunately, there are consequences to having a slow website. For one, it will affect your website’s SEO meaning that your ranking on search engines such as Google will get lower within time. Sometimes it gets immediately get low, this is something you do not want as it means your competitors will have the upper hand
Another reason you’ll want to avoid having a slow website is the fact that people nowadays are fairly impatient. If a customer is having to wait far too long for a web page to load, they’re just going to exit out and find somewhere that will sell a similar service. So you must keep this in mind whenever you’re working on your website. It needs to be fast so your visitor retention rates are high, but you’ll want a fast website so your website rankings will stay fine as well.
Website Design Tips – Avoid giant walls of text
Nobody has time for that! If you’re wanting to have a nice user experience, then you’re going to want to use as few words as possible, be as understanding as possible, and think about graphic design too. It sounds like something to think about, but just go on some of your favourite websites. Even take a look at some of your competitor’s websites.
Are there any giant walls of text? Most likely there isn’t. Of course, there are some pages where it’s totally fine to be a bit lengthy in words such as blog posts, tutorials, instructions, and other important information. But even then you’ll want to cut the text down a bit.
Website Design Tips – Always think about the user experience
You’ll want to ensure that your website is constantly easy to navigate for your customers. If it’s going to be far too confusing then there is a very high chance that your customers are going to click out of your website. This is something you’ll want to avoid at all costs! So try to find ways where the user experience will be good. Some ideas and helpful elements that a good user-oriented experience will have can include
- Good colour scheme (but not overly colourful)
- Chat for websites
- Nice design elements
- Not too many buttons to links
- Search bar feature
- Important Pages on the menu such as About Us and Contact
- Footer bar containing links
- No broken links or buttons
- Contact form
There are other helpful elements that can make a massive difference in the quality of the website and the user experience as well. Just make sure to take a good look, evaluate what your website needs and what can be looked into. It may even be handy to create a checklist of what you’re wanting for your website, and what can help your website boost the user experience.
Optimising the website for mobile and tablet
Did you know that around 45% to 50% of users are now using mobile devices such as their phone or tablet when accessing the web? This is only growing which means that your website must become user-friendly for a variety of devices. Just like a visitor will quickly leave your website if it’s too slow, they’ll also leave it if it is going to be too hard to navigate while.
So it’s so important to optimise your website for these visitors. Depending on how your website is laid out, there is a chance that it’s already optimised but it’s best to always double-check. If you’re using WordPress themes or even SquareSpace, those are usually mobile-friendly already.
Website Design Tips – Don’t be afraid to blog
Content is king, and this is constantly being proved time and time again. Most websites will have an option for creating blog posts and you should not neglect this whatsoever. Great blog content can drive additional traffic to your website. Thanks to the power of SEO, if someone is searching for something in particular and finds your website then this opens you to the possibilities of getting more visitors.
You’ll just want to make sure that you’re producing high-quality content for your audience. So skip out on anything generic that’s already been written before. Instead, you’ll want to write about topics that are not getting addressed.
Website Design Tips – Produce more content
Just like blog posts are very important pieces of content that a website should have, there are so many other types of content that you should feel free to produce as well. You’ll want to create high-quality, engaged-worthy content for your audience. They should be able to learn from this, it should be of value to them.
This will not only allow visitors to come back to your website for more, but this is also going to instill trust. If your free content is going to be high quality and value, then just imagine who your product is for sale, right? So some helpful ideas for creating engaging and valuable content for your audience (for free) can include
- Videos, such as tutorials
- Podcasts
- Infographics
- Ebook
- Checklist
- Workbook
- Class
- Mini newsletter course
These are only a few ideas, but the possibilities can truly be endless for what you can provide to your audience for free. So don’t be afraid to create some content for your visitors, because you never know who it may attract.
Always do alt text
What is alt text? Well if you have images on your website, you’ll want to write descriptions of what they are. So this is essentially what alt text is. It’s not exactly the same as a caption of an image. These are helpful for those who are blind, but it’s also helpful for SEO as well. It’s one of those small tips that tend to get looked over. So make sure to not forget about this. If you’re able to, try to fill in the alt text for all of your images.
Website Design Tips – Be wise with your domain
This may not be the best advice if your website and business are already established. But if you’re just starting out with your business or if you haven’t begun yet, this can be helpful. You want to avoid making your domain name long. Even when it comes to your web pages such as About, Contact, Blog, etc.
You should make your domain name short and sweet, and all of your URLs should be the same. For instance, if you’re writing a blog about “How to utilise social media”, you’ll instead want to shorten the URL to something such as “Social Media Tips”. This is great for SEO, but this can be helpful for past visitors as well if they’re needing to go back to your website. In short, your URL should be memorable, and the same for your URLs as well.
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