As a small business owner in Indiana, having an effective website is a key part of your business marketing plan. At NUVEW, we specialize in website design and development. As you think about building your website, here are 10 key elements of an effective website that you don’t want to overlook—
1. Navigability
It’s important that your website is easy to navigate. If users have a hard time finding the different pages of your website, they’re likely to leave your website before they make a purchase or take another meaningful action. Menus should be clear, and all links should work.
2. Strong Domain Name
A strong domain name is critical. If you are building your website for the first time, choose a domain name that’s concise, easy to spell, memorable, and specific to your business.
3. Good E-Commerce Platform
If you’re selling products online, you’ll certainly want a good e-commerce platform. The right e-commerce platform for your business depends on your industry, product, and e-commerce goals. Our marketing specialists can help.
4. SEO-Friendly Content
All of the content on your website should be readable, relevant to your industry, useful to your target audience, and integrate search-engine-friendly keywords. Content that is original, creative, and relevant will yield higher amounts of organic search traffic.
5. Responsive Design
A website must be responsive. When a website is responsive, it means that it will display correctly regardless of the type of device it’s accessed on, be it a phone, computer, laptop, or tablet. If a website isn’t responsive, users are likely to bounce (leave your site before taking meaningful action), and search engines may not display your site on search results pages.
6. Beautiful Design
Websites that are beautifully designed will be more attractive to users. They’ll also be easier to navigate and can inspire people to take the actions that you want. It’s important that your website pages are clean, have plenty of whitespaces, are visually appealing, and use colors, fonts, images, and language that reflect your brand.
7. Visuals
All websites should include images. Images are engaging and can trigger emotions in users. In addition to just pictures, don’t overlook the value of using videos.
8. Fast Load Time
Load time is essential to the efficacy of a website. If a website doesn’t load quickly, users are likely to leave the site. If your website is slow, upgrading it should be your top priority. Work with our website design experts to learn more about website speed improvements.
9. Consistency
Across your website, things like colors, fonts, language, images, graphics, layout, and overall design should be consistent. It can be overwhelming to a user to encounter design changes, not to mention off-brand.
10. Maintenance Plan
Finally, don’t forget about the importance of a website maintenance plan! In addition to the above design elements, you’ll also need to pay attention to server capabilities, webmaster tools, and analytics.
Call NUVEW Today
At NUVEW, we specialize in website development. To learn more about the 10 key elements of an effective website and how we can help your small business grow, call us today.