Small Business Web Design
How to find a web design consultant
Ask any small business owner and you’ll probably hear the same thing - it’s important to have some kind of presence on the Internet.
This is true not only for businesses that sell products, but also for service-oriented businesses. Although you obviously can’t package a service and ship it to a customer’s home, you can still create a good degree of awareness about your company by having a website. In the old days, people would pick up the Yellow Pages when they needed to find someone to repair their refrigerator. Today, more and more people are going online when faced with the same situation.
If you don’t already have a website, you’ll have to hire someone to make one for you. There are lots of web designers out there, so you’ll have plenty of choice. Shop around to find the best price. Also, be sure to check out the portfolio of each designer that you are interested in hiring. Look for one who has designed sites that are along the lines of what you want.
Web Design Basics
Not every web designer is an expert. Some are young people who are just starting out. Before you hire a designer, make sure he or she is knowledgeable about:
- Domains. Domains are the addresses where websites can be found. For example, if your company is called Barbara’s Bakery, you would probably want to have the website barbarasbakery.com. Have you registered a domain for your company?
- Hosting. Web hosting is just a fancy way of describing where the data for your website is stored. You’ll need to sign up with a web hosting company.
- SEO. SEO stands for search engine optimization. It’s a method of creating a website so that it will show up when people search for related words in search engines like Google or Yahoo. For example, if you sell homemade Christmas tree ornaments, you would like your website to be the top result when someone types “homemade Christmas tree ornaments” into a search engine.
- Usability. Flashy websites are fun to look at, but they aren’t the best way to go for most businesses. Your customers don’t want to wait five minutes for a video to load; they want to immediately find the product they are looking for and order it. For your company’s website, make sure you focus less on aesthetic appeal and more on user-friendliness.
