Business Web Design: Should you design it yourself, or get help from a web designer?

If you are deciding to design your own business website, then I’ve put together a short know-how to get you thinking about how to design it. If you follow these steps, it should help you to be on track to have a strong website for your business.

Consider the use for your website:

What is your customers’ end goal when they visit your website? Do you want your customers to use your site as a reference tool to find out about the services you offer? Do you want clients to purchase directly from your website? Do you feel you need to have some sort online presence? You may need to look at an e-commerce website so you can sell your products online. You may want to focus on writing a blog-based website. Whatever the overall use for your website may impact on the type of website you choose.

Which website platform to choose?

You could go to a popular SaaS website builder, like Squarespace, that have easy to use templates to build your site. You’ll then be able to alter the templates to make them your own. Designing a website by yourself can be a challenge as you’ll need to understand aspects, such as alt tags and responsive design, while also having an eye for design. These SaaS website builders tend to already understand how to optimise their websites for Google, although you do still have to optimise your own website. And love it or hate it, Google is the main search engine that customers will use to find your site.

Another option is using WordPress. This is a much bigger learning curve and you will need to pay specific attention to the security of your website and keep it regularly updated so it stays protected. There are lots of WordPress-based website builders. I use the premium Divi Builder when I design WordPress websites for my clients. You’ll have to consider website hosting options as well.

It is possible you look into all of this and realise that you don’t have the time or skills to design a great website and you need a good website designer who can help instead. If you do choose to continue to design your business website by yourself, here are some more points to help you.

Make it easy for your customers:

Think about when you walk into a supermarket and you can’t find the cornflakes because they’ve changed it all around. Makes you angry, doesn’t it? If on your website customers can’t find what they are looking for quickly and efficiently, they’ll leave and go somewhere else. Make it as easy as possible for them to find out what you do and why you can solve their problem. Don’t make this journey hard for them.

Make the content relevant:

There’s no point in putting information on your site that doesn’t serve a purpose. For example, don’t put a call to action that doesn’t lead to a contact form. You’ll frustrate your clients as they can’t get to their end result. Plus you want to make it easy for them to contact you. Don’t put a design element on your website just because it looks pretty. All designs need to have a purpose. If they have a purpose, make them look pretty after.

Include your brand identity:

Consistency in your businesses brand is important. Think about it – if, in every place you advertise you look completely different, no one will realise it’s you. Your business would not be familiar to anyone. If you have a consistent strong brand, people will begin to notice you. If they start to follow you on multiple channels, they will start to like you. They may even feel they know you and trust you and hopefully buy from you. Your branding can have a great impact on the know, like and trust concept.

Consider SEO and Keywords:

Using basic language on your website can impact your Google search engine results in a good way. Try not to over-complicate what you want to say. Google will scan your website for content that matches peoples’ searches. You should then attract attention from the right customers. These are probably the customers that are likely to be needing your services. Make sure you include your keywords in each section of the web page you are creating, for example, if you are writing a blog, make sure those keywords are in the header, body text, alt text (if it’s relevant to the image) and search engine optimisation (SEO) meta tags.

Set up a Google Business Profile:

You know when you search on Google Maps or Google search engine for, let’s say, restaurants, for example and you see a list of restaurants appear with their contact details? Well, you’re seeing a Google Business Profile in the search results. These listings are easy to set up, it’s free and a great addition to your business. It will allow your potential customers to know where you are, if you are open, and how far away you are from them if they are thinking of coming to visit you or engaging with your business. You can also add posts (imagine a virtual noticeboard), images and video, all giving your customers an idea of what you can offer them. You don’t actually need a website to set this up and it’s a great way to let people know where you are on the map.

If you need more help:

If you’re finding the web design process too challenging, then why not book a Zoom call with me – I’d be happy to help. You can contact me here.

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