Run A Home Business? How To Design An Amazing Website
Do you run your own business, especially from the comfort of your own home? Then being accessible is your number one priority. People can’t search you out in person to schedule a meeting or buy something - it’s all online! As such, a home business’ best asset is its website. That means your website needs to be the best version of itself possible.
And if your website is going to be the biggest representative of your business, it’s going to need a lot of polish. It’s going to need some in depth design principles to follow, and a simple bit of functionality that brings people back time and time again. So, what do you want your website to look like? What do you think your customers want your website to do? We’ve answered both of these questions with a few ideal points below.
The Homepage Needs to Be ‘Comforting’
When we say comforting, we don’t mean safe and familiar. After all, you don’t need to design your website to be plain and boring! What you actually need to pinpoint here is the feeling of being in the right place. Because a visitor should be able to tell, directly from your homepage or a landing page, that you’re the business for them.
A lot of this feeling is in the colors, messaging, and layout you decide to use. For example, bright and bold colors build a sense of confidence and brashness, whereas pastel colors feel more gentle and soothing. Give this principle some real thought when you’re in your website builder.
The Content Should ‘Speak’ Properly
Any content you craft for your website needs to sound like you wrote it. What does that mean? It’s all in the tone. What does your brand sound like? And how can you reflect that in the things you write, and the topics you choose to address? By simply ensuring you create value for each and every post and piece of copy you decide to write.
Indeed, any and all e-commerce consulting companies would recommend this kind of high quality content as the best marketing strategy. When someone can come to your website for both a good product and a bit of good advice, they're going to stick around for more! So make sure you’re writing to reflect this. Understand who you are as a business and what you’re trying to achieve, and headline all your content drafts with this information.
Make Yourself as Accessible as Possible
We spoke about accessibility briefly above, but now it’s time to go all out on this concept. First and foremost, make sure your company details are front and center for everyone to see. People need to know who you are and how to contact you, especially if they have a question, comment, or complaint, and making this information hard to track down will net you a bad reputation.
This is also where a good social media presence really shines. The more you post online, the more your targeted customer base will come to trust you. After all, you’re clearly an active poster that’s happy to be the face of a brand - that means anyone can contact you with a quick DM or a simple comment on something like a tweet. This builds trust more than anything else.
It Simply Needs to Work
Finally, and honestly the most important of all the points here, your website needs to work as intended. If someone clicks on a link, they should be taken to that page. If someone uses your search function, they should be able to find what they’re looking for. Now, these might sound like basic principles no one forgets about during the design process, but you’d be surprised!
Always double check your website has been set up to link correctly, and that your pages are indexed for search terms. Do some tests on those couple things mentioned above and see if you get to the best end result. If you don’t, something needs tweaking in the code!
Designing an amazing website is the best way to promote your home business. Above all else, make sure your visitors are able to navigate easily and find what they’re looking for. And remember, a bit of glam and glitter goes a long way too! But if you’re really struggling to decide how your website should look, and how it should feel to use, put yourself in the customer’s shoes. What would you want from a business like yours?
