website for business

In today’s digital marketing realm, a website is a compelling business tool. It is a place where visitors can learn more about your brand, its products and services. With a killer business website, it becomes much easier for you to attract prospects and convert them through effective content marketing. 

Why do you need to build a killer website?

Whatever might be the nature or purpose of your enterprise, you must have a proper website in place. It enables users to find you online, get to know about your business, get reviews and testimonials from your existing customers etc. It also guides visitors to take appropriate action to proceed with your business.

A well-designed website however, is one that involves every detail in a precise manner to offer a smoother surfing experience. A website like this helps you convert your web traffic into customers. It also develops a sense of confidence and trust among your prospective clients about your brand. 

Following are some of the website designing tips that help you build a killer website for your business:

1. Establish the purpose of your website

Whether you want to expand your online presence, run an e-commerce site or offer local/consulting services, you will have to establish the main motive beforehand behind building a website. While some web design elements are universal such as navigation, readability, and responsiveness, an e-commerce website has specific prerequisites different from a corporate website or a creative portfolio.

Thus, understand the purpose of your business and know its requirements before you start the web designing process. 

Moreover, decide how you will structure the website. You can consider building a wireframe that involves designing the website on PowerPoint or simply on paper to connect pages to get an idea of how the website will look. You can start building an actual website after taking insights from wireframes. 

Also, make sure to create the correct map of navigation to offer a good user experience.

2. Domain name

A domain name is the critical aspects of the URL structure of your business website. A URL is much like a physical address that directs online users to your website. 

However, your domain name should be aligned with your branding. Consider buying variations of the name you select to make sure that others cannot steal your traffic by copying your name once you successfully manage to drive huge traffic to your website. For example, consider buying .net, .info and .org versions of your domain name apart from the .com version.  

3. Choosing a reliable web hosting

A web host offers a space that contains website content. Several aspects are linked to a web host, including site speed, security, uptime and site functionality, which can influence SEO. Thus, choosing reliable web hosting for your website is very important. 

Make sure you select a web host that guarantees over 99.5% uptime. It also should take care of other factors such as storage, monthly traffic limits, data security and customer support. 

If you are a small business, you can start with shared hosting, as they are cost-effective compared to dedicated hosting.

4. A content management system or CMS

A content management system (CMS) is at the core of your website design. It helps you eliminate or minimize the need for coding in HTML/CSS. 

A CMS offer standard website elements such as headings, menus and pages to your website content to make it appealing to visitors. These options are free. 

With over 27 million users worldwide, WordPress is the most commonly used CMS.

5. Template

A template is necessary to offer an organized structure to your website content. It presents the content in an appealing style, fonts, colors and widgetized areas for better functionality. 

While there are several free templates, you can consider buying the template of your choice as, more often, they are not too costly. You can even try a template before purchasing, as many providers rent the template for a specific period. 

When considering a template, do not overlook its responsiveness. As more than 50% of global web traffic comes from mobile devices, make sure your website appears great on the screens of mobile devices. Responsiveness is a set of coding principles that help you check the compatibility of your template on different devices.

Different elements of your website, including logo, images, texts and other elements, should be optimized for screens of different orientations and sizes. 

Moreover, consider using a valid SSL certificate to offer security to your site’s data.

6. Site loading speed

If a visitor has to wait for few seconds on a slow website, he will most likely leave the site sooner. Thus, your website’s loading speed is a critical factor that you can not turn a blind eye to it. Let’s see what can you do to speed up your website: 

  • Select a reliable hosting provider
  • Compress images on-site to an optimal size
  • Make use of caching by which you can store your data on the user’s device. It helps you greatly to improve the loading speed
  • Reduce HTTP request and server response time
  • Take care of site responsiveness to optimize it for different mobile devices
  • Utilize a CDN (content distribution network)

Conclusion

Website building is more important today than ever as businesses are expanding their presence online. However, building a website is not enough; you must take care of several factors involved in its design. This article has provided some hacks that can help you build a killer website and grow your business online .