It’s no secret that businesses should all have websites by now. There’s article after article about it online. To be honest, some of the time, the case can be a little overstated. Your business probably isn’t going to fail within a year just because you don’t have a website. But there’s no denying the benefits of having one.
So, with this in mind, most businesses will strive to have a website online representing their work or selling their products. But there are a lot of cases out there where businesses just put any old thing out there. The attention to detail just isn’t there. You see, the problem becomes apparent when we look at the reason a lot of these businesses start up their website. The reason is simply because they heard that a business needs a website!
FlickrIf that’s the only reason your business has a website, then you could be running into some problems. The fact is that you have to take a more nuanced, detailed look at exactly what your website is supposed to do. ‘Build a website’ shouldn’t be just another item on your ‘Starting a business’ checklist. It needs to serve a particular purpose.
Information
A lot of businesses don’t have wild ambitions for their website. They simply want it to host information about their business. The website itself isn’t the center of their business, nor is there much profit to be made directly from it.
PixabayThat’s all well and good, of course. But that doesn’t mean your website should be nothing more than bunch of text against a plain background. If you want to get information across to users, then you need to think about the best ways to get that information across. Don’t treat a web page like it’s a piece of paper good enough for text. You can use intricate web design to get your point across in new ways. Find out more about using web design to your advantage.
Interaction
Is the purpose of your website to harbor interaction between you and clients or customers? Perhaps it’s simply a help page, or a list of contact information. If this is the case, then you need to think about the best ways you can use the website to communicate.
WikimediaYour website could be a portal through which instant messaging can take place. This is a great feature if you want to ensure fast help for your users. Of course, you also need to think about the non-interactive elements of your page, too. Your website should convince users that they’ve come to the right place. It should assure them that you will do your best to help; consumers should know that before they even contact you.
Sales
Perhaps your website is there to display and sell your products and services. In which case, we’re dealing with an ecommerce website. This, of course, is a lot more complex that the other types of website. The assumption here, of course, is that this would be your main point of business.
PixabayThankfully, there are loads of things you can do to improve your website and increase sales. But you should also take on the advice of the previous two sections to ensure full user satisfaction!
