Today, especially after the pandemic, people are accustomed to seeing businesses’ websites due to their shopping habits shifting online. Having an effective web design for small businesses in the UK is very important because it’s a critical element that your audience observes to determine how credible your business is. You must have a well-functional, user-friendly website with a proper theme and content that truly reflects your brand’s image, message, and values.
In this post, we will discuss what elements small business website owners should consider in order to attract and engage new or existing customers a long way.
Before we dive into the guide on how to create an effective website for your small business, let’s understand why a small business should have its own website.
You might have heard that design is the very first element your visitors observe. This is true. People create perceptions about your overall business within a matter of seconds. Obviously, this impacts their decision about buying something or leaving to your competitors’ websites. Clearly, a small business is developing and growing; it always requires a positive first impression to capture a customer to retain for a long time. Here, an effectively designed website comes in. It does not only convey your business’s professional image but also assures your audience that you’re a credible brand that offers quality products or services.
By achieving first-impression success by having a custom website design for small business, you can attract your desired audience, keep them coming repeatedly, and encourage them to be updated about your upcoming or existing products. This strategy helps you make people buy your offerings, properly sign up, and contact you.
First, you need to create an exhaustive strategy plan on what your business objectives are, how you will implement them, and how you will work on each factor of your website to facilitate your audience better before developing a small business website.
As a first step, conduct thorough research to understand your audience and their pain points, and go through their journey from searching for a product or service to checkout. This practice will help you determine how your website should be designed to facilitate your customers well. For this, you need to have a solid grasp of the following factors:
Your website should present a sense of your business central hub online. People of the UK are mostly careful about how you present your business over the Internet; they often check and observe your online social activities and want to be updated about the latest developments and obviously new offers.
What to do about it?
Add social media buttons on your website that guide your visitors to your social media platforms, including Facebook, LinkedIn, X, and Instagram, with just a click. Additionally, it's ideal to place those buttons on the website's footer section and repeat that section on each page of the website.
A scrollable homepage makes your website accessible to a larger audience because more people than ever are using tablets and mobile devices to visit websites.
You can animate website elements to appear or move as the user scrolls to them, which makes a scrollable homepage even more contemporary and captivating. Without being overbearing or distracting, this design provides something of interest.
To make your scrollable homepage easier to navigate, divide it into sections. The following sections must be included in it:
Statistics calculate that about half of all web traffic is mobile. In addition, according to Google data, half of smartphone users would rather view a company's mobile website than download an app. Additionally, according to Google data, 58% of mobile users prefer businesses whose websites recall their previous online purchasing habits.
It's obvious that companies need to optimise their websites for mobile devices. Ensure your website is optimised for mobile devices and maintains the same quality on smaller displays as on larger ones. Make your mobile websites directly responsive to the needs of your users. Make it simple for them to obtain the information they're seeking by considering why they're visiting your mobile website.
When it comes to selecting colours for your website, less really is more. Colour has a significant impact on consumers' perceptions of your brand, and selecting the ideal colour scheme requires careful consideration.
Colours that are monochromatic, complementary, or comparable are what you should select. Monochromatic designs employ a single primary colour, effectively achieving a subtle aesthetic. However, it is crucial to incorporate some contrast to maintain interest.
One of the most common choices for small business website design is complementary colours since they produce an eye-catching appearance that draws the viewer in. Just ensure that the colours you select don't clash or become very distracting.
Lastly, similar shades have the potential to be visually pleasing and are positioned adjacent to one another on the colour wheel. However, just like with monochrome design, you must ensure that you use enough contrast.
One of the most important but underrated components of website design is choosing the correct typefaces. The right font makes it easier for visitors to navigate your website and supports the message of your brand.
The typefaces you select should fit the personality of your business and enhance the overall design. Steer clear of anything difficult to read, such as handwritten or cursive typefaces.
In order to create an effective web design for small businesses, search engine optimisation cannot be neglected. SEO helps drive organic traffic to your website. By doing this, you can maximise the chances of ranking your website in search engine result pages (SERPs) when your target customers are looking for your products or services.
Do keyword research to identify what your audience writes on the search engines to find businesses like you. Once found, infuse those keywords or phrases into your content naturally. Make use of popular tools like Google Keyword Planner and others.
Use relevant and high-volume keywords to optimise each page of your website. Infuse keywords into your website's headings, titles, Meta descriptions, and URLs. Additionally, upload content that is readable, unique, and contains helpful information for your visitors.
Implement technical SEO to ensure your website is technically perfect. You can improve site speed by using a secure HTTPS connection and creating an XML sitemap to achieve this. Also, check and fix any broken links to ensure your website is mobile-friendly.
Local SEO for small business websites is very crucial. List your business presence on Google My Business (GMB) and include your business location in important website sections. Ask your customers to leave reviews.
It is truly said that "content is king," as your content plays a very important role in welcoming visitors and guiding them to visit other pages, learn about your business objectives, and show their interest in your products and services. Follow these guidelines to produce compelling and persuasive content:
Define exactly what you want to say to the people paying attention. The purpose of your content is to persuade readers to act by highlighting the benefits of your brand.
Consider keyword incorporation in a natural way to uplift your website's visibility in search engine results. Avoid AI-written content, copied content from elsewhere, and keyword stuffing, as they are likely to harm your site's ranking.
Search engines favour websites regarding their indexing and ranking of updated content. Update your content regularly and keep it engaging, informative, and valuable for visitors.
Building an effective website for small businesses in the UK requires strategic planning, decent and appropriate design and ongoing maintenance. You can create an attractive yet persuasive small business website by thoroughly understanding your audience, giving importance to user experience, producing inviting and valuable content, and implementing SEO best practices.
What's more, it's necessary to remember that your website is a dynamic tool that will always need updating. By using expert design services, harnessing analytics, and providing frequent updates, you can make sure your site will continue to function as your business expands. A well-designed website may play a crucial role in helping your small business succeed over the long run in the competitive UK market by giving it a strong online presence. To achieve excellence in creating a perfectly designed website, you may hire a reliable company that offers web design for small businesses.
We work with world-class technology providers to deliver exceptional solutions. This partnership ensures that we’re offering the best possible solutions to drive your business forward.
Feel free to contact us regarding any query. We will be happy to serve you at our best.
Our process is simple and fast, Just choose your desired package, place an order by providing your basic information, billing details, logo brief, and it's done. One of our Account Manager will contact you soon upon successful completion of submission.
Once we received the initial design brief, our design team do some brainstorming and develop some ideas and decide on a direction to create some sketches. Then a team of dedicated designers converts this idea into initial design concepts. Once QA is approved we send you the review and feedback. Based on your selection and feedback we revise the design and resend you the final feedback. Once you approved the design we deliver you the digital and Print ready Final Files in different file formats.
We use Teamwork and our Primary project management tool and keep all the conversations thread and media files in one place for the client's convenience. Our Account Managers ensure smooth communications and timely response and use all communication channels preferred by the client.