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Checklist for an Effective Business Website Having no business website today is a humongous mistake. When it comes to generating sales and profits, online marketing is the in-thing now. And it’s not just a fad. Unless someone finds a way to make the Internet vanish or remove every trace of the Web, online marketing is here to stay. People will stay “connected” to the virtual world and continue “surfing” for answers ranging from the most mundane to the most profound. Unsurprisingly, the number of small business websites is constantly increasing. New ones go live every day. Some look crisp and professional, while others look like ugly patchworks. Badly designed websites will do more harm than good. It will not only lose you money but it will also drive away potential customers. To make sure that this doesn’t happen to you, here’s a checklist for creating a friendly business website: Relevant domain name. The domain name refers to the characters between the “www” and the “.com” of your site address. In choosing your domain name, it’s advisable to either go for keywords that reflect your business or your business name itself. For example, if your business is called Roofing Brothers and you’re into customized roofing for homes, then a good domain would be www.customizedroofing.com or, wwww.customroofsforhomes.com. Or, you could also use www.roofingbrothers.com. However, domain names are subject to availability. You might have to make some adjustments if the one you want is unavailable. Clean Layout. In web design, less is always more. So, make sure that there is no clutter; there’s lots of white space; the text are large and legible; and the use of graphics should be minimal. Adding too much graphics will only slow your site down and dumping text all in one place is the most rapid way of hitting the snooze button in your reader’s head. Aside from that, a slow site will only irritate site users. Remember: If people are impatient in real life, they are twice or thrice like that online. So keep your business website light and fast. Easy navigation. You don’t want your readers to be lost in your website. Group similar pages together and use clear labels for your heading. Add a side navigation to aid your users. If it’s necessary for some web pages to go deep into the site, use breadcrumb navigation. That way, your reader will always know where he is. Also, give a site wide easy-access to your homepage. So that no matter which page your readers land on, they’ll always the option to flip to the homepage.

Checklist for an Effective Business Website

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Page 1: Checklist for an Effective Business Website

Checklist for an Effective Business Website

Having no business website today is a humongous mistake. When it comes to generating sales and profits, online marketing is the in-thing now. And it’s not just a fad. Unless someone finds a way to make the Internet vanish or remove every trace of the Web, online marketing is here to stay. People will stay “connected” to the virtual world and continue “surfing” for answers ranging from the most mundane to the most profound. Unsurprisingly, the number of small business websites is constantly increasing. New ones go live every day. Some look crisp and professional, while others look like ugly patchworks.

Badly designed websites will do more harm than good. It will not only lose you money but it will also drive away potential customers. To make sure that this doesn’t happen to you, here’s a checklist for creating a friendly business website:

Relevant domain name. The domain name refers to the characters between the “www” and the “.com” of your site address. In choosing your domain name, it’s advisable to either go for keywords that reflect your business or your business name itself. For example, if your business is called Roofing Brothers and you’re into customized roofing for homes, then a good domain would be www.customizedroofing.com or, wwww.customroofsforhomes.com. Or, you could also use www.roofingbrothers.com. However, domain names are subject to availability. You might have to make some adjustments if the one you want is unavailable.

Clean Layout. In web design, less is always more. So, make sure that there is no clutter; there’s lots of white space; the text are large and legible; and the use of graphics should be minimal. Adding too much graphics will only slow your site down and dumping text all in one place is the most rapid way of hitting the snooze button in your reader’s head. Aside from that, a slow site will only irritate site users. Remember: If people are impatient in real life, they are twice or thrice like that online. So keep your business website light and fast.

Easy navigation. You don’t want your readers to be lost in your website. Group similar pages together and use clear labels for your heading. Add a side navigation to aid your users. If it’s necessary for some web pages to go deep into the site, use breadcrumb navigation. That way, your reader will always know where he is. Also, give a site wide easy-access to your homepage. So that no matter which page your readers land on, they’ll always the option to flip to the homepage.

Page 2: Checklist for an Effective Business Website

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