The checklist for developing a business website

Starting a business website or redesigning an existing business website seems like a pretty easy thing to do, but in order to make sure you build a successful website we have below a checklist for you to make sure you have the basics covered

• Know your competitors. When you are looking at establishing or reinventing your online presence and personality it’s important you know who your competitors are. The reason this is important is that clients may well reference your competitors when speaking with you, they may compare your services or pricing and you need to be ready to clearly define the differences between your business and theirs. Knowing your competitors is also a great way of reviewing the features and design they have for their website. By reviewing competitor sites you may find gaps in their sites that you feel you could integrate into your site putting yourself ahead of the pack. Alternatively they may observe features or functionality that you could incorporate into your site to give your user a great experience on your website.
• Get to know who wants you. One of the biggest mistakes business owners make with their website is not having a true understand of whom their audience is, who their prospective clients will be. This information is vital for branding and copy so that you effectively reach out to your target market.
• What are you saying? What does your website copy tell the website user? It is not only important for your website to have strong headlines that clearly tell the user about your services or products but it’s also very important not to use industry jargon that a potential client might not understand.  Make sure your headings are bold and clear and tell the user everything they need to know immediately. A short effective heading will engage a user and will more likely result in them spending time on your website, if your value proposition is not clear a user is more likely to leave your site straight away.
• Befriend consistency. Have you ever been to a supermarket and nothing is in a logical order, the isles are a mish mash and you just can’t find what you want? It’s so frustrating, this is how it feels when you get to a website and you have to guess which menu items to click on to find the information you are after. A website relies on consistency to build client trust, keep a consistent layout and make it as quick as possible to navigate to any page within your website. Allow your web developer to set up the layout of your pages within your website and keep within the same format when adding additional pages.
• Focus the font. The design of your custom website is of course crucial to the way customer’s view and judge your business. Generally a business website will have 2 fonts that they use within a website, there is nothing worse on a website than too many different colours and fonts being used. Follow your branding. The corporate colours of your logo design should depict the style and colours of your website.
• Don’t forget human contact. When your clients are searching for your product or service the likelihood is that they are checking out you and a couple of your competitors. They are most likely using your website to sum you up and once they feel you may be a final candidate will want to connect with you to ask further defining questions. Make sure they can work out how to contact you from any page on your website, have strong CTA’s.
• Be a customer. Finally to really give your clients what they want, become your own customer. If you were your customer what would you want to know about your business. What information would you like to see and read about. What would make you feel  that your business connects with exactly what you were looking for. By thinking of yourself as your own ideal customer this will help you to write effective copy and work out any functionality you think your website will need.

Neubreed has been developing custom designed website for businesses of all sizes across Sydney and abroad for over 14 years. If you would like to talk through your ideas for your website chat to us today on 02 8007 0218.