A functional website design is an indispensable tool every small business owner should never neglect. A quality website does not only help you build and grow your online presence but shows that your company is credible and can be trusted by customers. In addition, using new website design ideas to build your site will help generate traffic and foster a good user experience. In today’s podcast, Lindy Nowak from Up in a Day and Stephen Halasnik discuss what business owners should know about new website design.
What a Business Owner Should Know About a New Website Design
The internet has proved to be a crucial aspect of branding building. Small business owners with good website designs compete favorably in their varying market niches. Research shows that 81% of customers will conduct online research before making a buying decision. Similarly, customers judge a company’s credibility based on the website design. However, despite the numerous benefits of having a website, that offers a great user experience, for business growth, many small businesses have failed to leverage this great online marketing tool to position their presence to their target audience.
According to the Small Business administration (SBA), only 64% of the 30 million small businesses have a website. Many factors might account for this shocking statistic. It could be that business owners don’t know where to start, or the cost is just beyond their budget. Whatever the case, small business owners that fail to factor in the internet when building their companies can hardly reach enough customers, especially the internet-savvy population.
Therefore, having a user-friendly website design that’s SEO compliant will help boost your brand image, generate traffic, and make conversions. Read on to know how to build a new website design that will significantly impact your small business operation.
How To Design A New Website
Whether you want to contact a professional or do it yourself, knowing how to design a new website is ultimately important as it’s a great tool you can’t do away with while running your business. Below is the step-by-step process that can aid you when building your website.
Know your website objectives.
Every website serves a specific purpose. For example, there’re different types of websites, including an online store, portfolio, blog, landing page, and resume.
Depending on your business objective, you should create a website design that truly represents your business needs. In other words, if you’re into online retailing, your aim should be to create an accessible and navigational e-commerce site.
Choose a domain name.
You consider a website name that aligns with your business objectives so that your domain will say what your business does. To do this, you need to brainstorm properly by writing keywords related to your business niche.
It’s important you don’t use numbers, a hyphen, or special characters within your domain name so that people will easily say your website URL without any confusion. Once you have chosen a good business name that has not been taken by someone else, it’s time to pay for it so that it belongs to you. In addition, your domain is subject to renewal every year, but many of them are only about $10-20.
Select your website platform
After you have chosen and paid for your domain name, the next thing you’ll want to do is choose your website platform. There’re many available options out there for you to make a choice. Depending on your website objective and design knowledge, some platforms may require a bit of code and content block, while others could be less technical and straightforward.
You might consider hosting your business website on the below four popular platforms. These platforms allow you to customize your website to suit your goals.
WordPress
Obviously, the most popular website design platform for your small business, about 43% of the web is built on WordPress by small businesses, bloggers, and fortune 500 companies. WordPress allows you to create any website without code, manual, or guide.
In addition, it has thousands of easy-to-install add-ons that allow you to update your site to accommodate your business growth.
Squarespace
If you want an easy- drag-and-drop website builder, you might want to consider Squarespace. This platform helps people with little or no website design experience to create an appealing website that can comfortably serve their purpose, plus it requires no external hosting.
Squarespace has template options that allow you to create and customize your websites to align with your small business objective. Additionally, it has excellent marketing features such as email and social media support for your business growth.
Pixpa
Pixpa, an all-in-one portfolio website builder for creators and businesses, allows you to create professional websites with a built-in online store, blog, and client galleries to showcase your product, sell online, or share ideas.
Moreover, its simplicity and easy-to-use features make creating a website a breeze. Plus, it does not require any extra third-party plugins, only an intuitive drag-and-drop website builder.
Wix
Whether you want to start from scratch or choose from a designer-made template, Wix can help you completely customize your site using the drag-and-drop website builder. Its numerous features allow you to promote your business, showcase your work or open an online store.
Further, with the Wix Editor, you can create your professional website to match your business needs.
Conclusion
There’s no doubt that a good website design is critical in business brand building, and ideally, you should have one to help facilitate the growth of your business. A website will increase your business’s bandwidth and reach so that you can easily reach plenty of prospects far and wide.
Your website will reflect your company, product, and brand when done properly. However, you should aim to optimize your site’s speed and make it compatible with mobiles and PCs to foster a user-friendly website.
Learn More About Our Guest
Lindy Nowak spent 15 years in New York City as an art director and creative director across some major brands, including Loreal, Entertainment Weekly, and Women’s Health Magazine. From here, she decided to fulfill her dream and moved into the world of entrepreneurship, where she started a new-to-market website company, Up in a Day.
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