A website comes in all shapes and sizes.
If you are selling online through a website, it is termed as an ecommerce website. If you have a listing of local businesses/shops on your website, it is termed as a directory website.
In this article, we are going to know more about a business website and what characteristics a business website should have to make it look professional to your customers visiting the website.
What is a business website?
In simple terms, a business website is a website that provides information about your business.
The website highlights the products or services you offer, the location of your business, the relevant person to contact in your business and so on.
Essentially, a business website comprises of all the information your typical customer would ask you over the phone. Thus, having a business website has a lot of advantages
Characteristics of a professional business website
Now that you know what a business website is, let’s look at the 7 key characteristics your business website should have to make it look professional.
1. Relevant Content
Your professional business website should have relevant content.
What do I mean by relevant content?
Relevant content for a business website is the content that answers most of the general queries of your target audience.
Let me explain.
Let’s consider you are into the business of manufacturing shoes. What relevant content should be included on the website for a shoe manufacturing business?
This would include content like:
- Your history of the business
- Some statistics about your business – How many shoes are manufactured, number of employees, number of clients, manufacturing facilities
- Downloadable product brochure
- Product Gallery showcasing the types of shoes manufactured with description
- Contact details of your sales/marketing team for inbound customer inquiries
- Testimonials of your previous clients
These are some of the points your business website can include that customers can find relevant. And it does not necessarily have to be the same.
You can have additional relevant content that you think can help the user make an informed decision. The idea is to include all the relevant content so as to generate a lead, a phone call or an email.
2. Easy Navigation
According to a popular survey, the attention span of a user online is eight seconds. This means that your website has 8 seconds to capture your customer’s attention.
If the user is not able to find the relevant information that he is looking for in the 8 seconds, he is likely to exit your website and search elsewhere – your competitor.
For this reason, your professional business website should have an easy navigation structure through which your customers can find your information easily.
Continuing with the shoe manufacturing business example, you can have the relevant information clubbed and organized into web pages.
These web pages can have a relevant heading that when clicked would take the customer to the relevant section of the website.
The heading should appear on all pages of the website giving easy access to the customers to visit the relevant content under each heading.
We will discuss the key web pages in the presence of key pages section below.
3. Elegant and Attractive
Needless to say that the website needs to look elegant following the latest trends in web design and development.
Remember that you have less than 8 seconds to engage your customer. The website UI/UX has to be spot on.
Some key factors to ensure the elegance and attractiveness of the website:
- Good color palette – Do not use more than 3-4 colors on the website. Ensure that they are close to your brand colors
- Ensure your content is well spaced out and has white space. Use relevant high-quality images to support necessary content.
- Use Call to Action buttons to guide users to take action where necessary.
- Responsiveness – Check that your website is responsive across the latest devices and adapts to the screen size it is viewed on.
- Use a content management system like WordPress. WordPress comes with a lot of elegant templates that make your website look attractive.
4. HTTPS Enabled
A few years ago, when your website did not have HTTPS, all was good. This was until Google confirmed in its blog that HTTPS will be a ranking signal.
A website without HTTPS displays ‘Not Secure’ in the browser’s address bar when users visit your website. This puts off a lot of users as they feel that the business might not be genuine.
The right thing to do is to ask your web developer to install SSL certificate for your website. This will convert your website to HTTPS.
5. SEO Friendly
Your business website needs to be search engine optimization friendly.
Do all of your pages have unique H1 tags?
Do your images have ALT tags?
Do you have website caching enabled for speed?
Is your website canonical URL set?
These are some of the queries you should be asking your web developer to ensure the SEO friendliness of the website.
6. Presence of Key Pages
A professional business website should have certain key pages. These key pages form easy navigation for the website and should contain relevant content.
The key pages provide the users with all the necessary information and satisfy all the queries a user would have pertaining to the business website.
Key Pages:
Home – This can contain information like the USPs, statistics, testimonials, why us and inquiry form.
About Us – Information on core team members, vision and mission.
Services/Products – The services/products page should highlight your products or services in detail.
Contact Us – Contact details like address, phone number and email. Map for directions and an inquiry form.
Conclusion:
Your website represents your business online. For it to look professional, it should meet the above points at a minimum.
Does your website exhibit the above key characteristics?
If not, your website might need enhancements or a complete makeover depending on the severity of the issues involved. Contact me today to see how I can help.
