Setting up a website is crucial for most small businesses, but not all get it right. If customers searching online do not find what they are looking for – or have to wait too long for your site to load – you have lost their business.
The power is in the hands of the user, not the website owner.
Many website owners focus too much on the appearance of the site rather than functionality.
It doesn’t have to be pretty
The reality is that after eight to 10 seconds, if a user hasn’t seen something that grabs their attention, they go.
With competition only a click away, the key for small businesses in setting up websites is to understand the customers and what the business needs to achieve before engaging a web developer.
A website is for life not just for Christmas
A lot of people rush out and build a website and then realise they have to attend to it and look after it.
Before you start, you should know how you are going to maintain it and make sure it is customer-centric, not owner-centric. A common mistake is to get something built that is too technical and graphic-driven but without the function it needs.
Once you’re clear about what you want, the next step is finding a web developer who can tick all the boxes – at the right price.
How to do your homework
With no industry standards for pricing or performance, you may get something suitable for almost nothing or a site that’s practically useless for thousands of dollars.
So it pays to do your research into the developer and their experience.
If you are collecting and storing credit card details, there are compliance requirements on which it’s worth seeking specialist advice.
Select the right web developer, that is, someone who understands you and your online business.
Those pesky unknown unknowns
Part of the problem is people don’t know what they don’t know, so it’s important that you are happy to go back to your developer and make changes.
It is important to have a good relationship with the customer so that the site is built around their customer needs. It can often be the first point of contact for a business, so it has to tell the right message and deliver what they want.
A good web designer understands how the various search engines work, as well as coding techniques that focus on keyword content. These give the website a more competitive edge so it appears in Google search engine results.
Your site has to be relevant to your business, user-friendly, easy to navigate and accessible. It is such an important tool which, done properly, will definitely help a business grow. It won’t do the business for you, but it will bring business to your door.
Horses for courses
Start with a clear picture of what you want the site to do. If it is a contact point for people to find you and your business, that is very different to an e-commerce site.
If it is an e-commerce site, then security and privacy can’t be ignored. Whatever payments processing you use, it has to be legitimate and robust. It has to be reputable to give people a sense of comfort.
Despite an apparent reluctance among consumers to pay for online content, the simpler the transaction the more likely people are to pay for something they see as having value.
The key thing for people to pay for stuff online is the ease and simplicity of the experience. A point of resistance is when someone has to punch in 16 digit codes and numerous passwords.
Customer loyalty is key
Online shoppers’ loyalty is largely driven by convenience, variety and pricing.
Get one thing wrong and you could quickly lose them to your competitors.
Top priority should be given to the time it takes a site to load. A recent survey of online shoppers found that 44 per cent would move on if a page took more than 15 seconds to load. Almost 70 per cent said they would leave after 30 seconds.
If a website takes more than a minute to load, more than 90 per cent said they would give up.
That as well as performance, e-tailers need to ensure that the site is always available, that it can cope with variable visitor traffic and growth, and that it is secure.
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