Time for a new web design for your small business?

If you search the web, you will find that there are many, many small business web designs that not only look outdated and unprofessional, but also have poor navigation and usability. If you are searching for a particular product or service on a search engine such as Google, you know that there probably won’t be a shortage of small businesses that are returned in your search results. On the first page of Google, you will have a choice of around ten or so different business links to click on. If you click through to a web design that looks unprofessional, in an instant you will probably be clicking on the next link. Many small business owners mistakenly believe that simply having a web presence is all that is needed to gain the benefits of online marketing. First impressions do count The design of your website represents the first impression your customer has of your business. If the web design of your site is outdated, or the information is poorly organized, or if your home page is so cluttered that it is hard to know what to look at, your website and web design is probably not working for you. Your visitors will not stay on your site, and take one look at your home page web design and move onto another site. Remember, a competitor’s web site is only a click away. Keeping up with the competition Do a search on Google for your competitors and go and look at how they are representing themselves online. Can you learn from these sites? Is their web design more contemporary, more professional looking than yours? Your website needs to, at the very least, look as professional as your competitors if you want to be competing with them at the same level. How often should you update your web site design? Generally, web designs can start to look dated after two to three years, depending on the style and quality of the design. Like fashion, web designs do go out of style. The simpler and cleaner your web design is, then generally the more timeless the design. The more contemporary and ‘now’ your web design is, the quicker it will date. Your web design should look contemporary when compared to your competitors. Measuring the success of your website This has never been easier. With all the software that is available to provide you with statistics on website visitors, including what pages they looked at, how they got to your site, keyword searches, etc. it is not difficult to see if you are going wrong. If all your visitors come to your home page and then leave the site, your web design probably has some usability issues that you will need to address. Creating the illusion Web designs can be deceptive. You can use a web design to create the illusion that your small business is large and thriving with seemingly hundreds of employees, even if it is not. Creating the illusion is the first step to making this a reality. Who shouldn’t create your web design Definitely not your brother’s friend who has just finished an HTML course and offers to do your web design and build for free, and definitely not your system administrator who has some spare time on his hands. Leave the web design and development of your website to professionals who have valuable experience in this area. It is worth paying someone to do a good job, than have a website designed built for free that can possibly damage the professional image of your business and in fact turn customers away. Is it time for a new web design for your small business?