5 Steps To A Great Website by Kristen Rosgaard

When designing a business website you must have the end user in mind. A business website is built to advertise your services and skills and is meant to portray your brand to current and potential clients. There are 5 key elements that every business website must have to keep their clients happy and keep new clients coming.

1 Good Business Web Design

A recent Harvard study showed that you only have 3 seconds to catch the attention of a visitor to your business web site before they leave, or "bounce." The bounce rate to your site has a lot to do with the design. Flash may look pretty but most web visitors find it very frustrating to have to wait for a flash intro to load before they can get to the actual content of the site. Also think about the colors of the site. Are they too bright, too dark or just right? You don't want to frighten away a potential client with a color palate that is too bright and might give your client a headache.

2 Easy Navigation

How frustrating is it when you get to a business web site and cannot find what you are looking for? Having a business web site that is built for easy navigation is the key to keeping clients happy. Logical menu placement, contact information and content entry are very important. In the business world time is money; your visitors are going to want to find what they came for and get on with their day. Don't think visitors will stay longer to find what they are looking for. They will leave and go to the next site hoping to find the information quickly.

3 Good Content

When using a business website, visitors will want to find pertinent information, not just fluff. Use logical content, not just filler information to get the site looking full. When writing content use a lot of paragraphs or bullet points. Readers typically like to scan text to find what they are looking for, bullet points and paragraphs make this much easier. Using bold font to highlight keywords and main ideas helps the reader find the information they are looking for as well. Think of colors for text too. Having colored text and backgrounds may make it more difficult for some visitors to read your content. Consistent color, font and size can help visitors read your content easily.

4 Branding

Using consistent branding throughout your entire business can help your business website. It can be frustrating when each new leaf of a company is different and something new you have to learn.

Keeping the look consistent through all of your marketing tools is beneficial to your clients. I find it comforting when a company business card, or postcard has the same look and feel as their business website. It is important for clients to feel consistency through a company’s branding.

5 An Effective Domain Name

Having an easy domain name that is on all of your marketing collateral will increase visits to your business website. It could be very frustrating if a potential client cannot remember the domain name of a great business they came across at an event. Even worse is when the client remembers the name but it was spelled strange and now they just can't find it. Make sure your domain name relates to your business. This will make the name easier to remember and to relate your business web site to your business.

Following these 5 web design elements will help any business web site be successful.

About The Author

Kristen Rosgaard is a native New Yorker who has found her way to Dahlonega, GA with GetUWired. GetUWired is a 7 year old business web design and development firm. We've built over 450 websites and have a 95% plus client retention rate. Please visit us at http://www.getuwired.com to browse our portfolio and review our packages.