Tips for building a successful website
You might have these 3 questions in mind; Why should my business have a website? How can a business website help me and my customers accomplish goals? How do I create a strong website?
Imagine Eva owns a custom wall art and home decor store. She carefully designs her store to create a great shopping experience and to showcase her flair for home decor. But when it comes to her website, she figures that since her company is a small brick and mortar business, her website’s design and content don’t really matter. Or do they?
Actually, a website is an extension of your business. Just like your business's physical location, you want your website to have prime real estate, showcase your brand, and convert browsers into buyers.
A good website works because it provides information like the business address and phone number, lets customers shop online, and showcases Eva’s flair for home decor.
Creating a website that converts browsers into buyers
The first step to creating a strong website is finding a prime location, which on the internet is a good domain name and web hosting. You can use websites like GoDaddy or Domain.com to search for and register available domain names or get it for free on purchasing any web hosting plan from Namecheap or Hostinger. I have already published a detailed article about choosing an ideal domain name and web hosting for your website. Must check it out. Eva registered evahomedecor.com and bought a shared web hosting plan.
Don’t forget to set up a custom email address on your domain, like inquiries@evahomedecor.com. This will make your business look professional, and can help increase brand awareness among people you email. You can get your business email for FREE from Namecheap or Hostinger.
Eva purchased a premium shared web hosting plan from Hostinger for $2.99 with a Free Domain name and Free Email Account.
Design
Good design helps guide your users’ eyes and tell them where you want them to look. Make your website attractive but don’t add too many flashy elements. Keep it simple. You can get thousands of web design templates from Envato. If you want to create a website on WordPress, Envato has thousands of beautiful themes and plugins for you to choose from. Make sure your website’s design is responsive i.e. it’s mobile-friendly and loads fast.
Your website should satisfy your customer’s needs while helping you reach your business goals. It can help you achieve goals like raising awareness, driving sales, or collecting leads.
Contact Section and CTAs
To raise awareness start with the basics: business name, map location, contact details like phone number, email. Consider putting your contact details in the footer section of every page and encourage customers to email or call you using CTAs (Call to Action) if they have questions. You must have a “Contact Us” section with a form where visitors can post their questions. Adding social media links is equally important. You can gain an audience on social media and keep your audience updated about your products/services.
About Section
Have an “About Us” section explaining what your does and stand for. The about us section tells your audience what exactly you do, about your team, your mission, goals, and achievements. Having staff bios and testimonials/customer reviews helps visitors get to know you and helps them in decision making.
Features Section
This is where you mention what makes you unique. For example, Eva makes custom wall art, she might want to create a page that allows customers to design their own wall art or see different designs for inspiration.
Optimize content for Search Engines
Search engines pull words from your web pages to understand what the website is about. It’s important that the website’s content is descriptive. To make sure your website covers all the relevant information, use the 5W’s:
Who: Your Business name — Eva Home Decor and Wall Art
What: Your products/services — Home decor store and customizable wall art designing
When: Your availability — 9 am to 5 pm, Monday to Saturday
Where: Your business location — Any street, any road, any city
Why: What makes you unique? — Customizable wall art
Note: Plagiarism is not at all acceptable. Do not copy-paste your website’s content. It will discourage Google from showing your website on the relevant search terms.
Add FAQ Section
If you think it would be helpful to explain your products or services in more detail, create a frequently asked questions (FAQ) section. This allows customers to learn more about your company.
Design consistency
Make sure to use font sizes, colors, and other aspects of design consistently across your website to make it look presentable and professional. Keep your website’s color scheme similar to your brand/logo color scheme.
