Requirements for a Professional Business Website

If you have never owned a website before, but need one for your business, you may not be aware of everything your new website needs in order for it to be a valuable marketing tool for you and your business. Your website developer should be able to review these with you and ensure that they're all incorporated into your new site.

1. Domain Name Ownership

One of the first mistakes that new business owners make is to let someone else purchase and register their domain name. Your .com domain is your address on the internet, and that address needs to reflect your name and the name of your organization if someone looks it up (go to http://www.BetterWHOIS.com and enter your domain name to see an example). Unfortunately, it's easy to sign up for a website builder program that includes a "free" domain that they register for you. Not only does this risk not having the domain in your name, which looks bad, it also risks leaving your domain name outside of your control. We recommend that all business owners purchase and maintain their own domain names. (See Domain Names 101 for more information on purchasing your domain.)

2. Domain Name Email

One of the easiest marketing methods businesses have for their website is their email, yet many site owners still use free accounts from Yahoo or GMail. When you send an email using your domain name, you are in essence advertising your website. If you send a message using AOL, you're only advertising for AOL, and they don't need your help. It also looks more professional. (See Why Your Email Address is So Important for more information.)

3. Professional Design

Perhaps the most critical of all our requirements is that you have a professional design. Websites are a visual marketing medium so design matters. It can be simple or complex, colorful or monochromatic - that should be determined by the nature of your business and industry. But regardless of the style, all elements of the site should work and look good. Professional design doesn't just mean that you paid for a design, it should also include concepts like usability, design flow, calls to action, and even considerations for other browsers and mobile platforms.

For instance, the concept of design flow is one where the designer considers how a visitor will perceive a website. The design should be such that a visitors eye is drawn through a series of text or graphical elements in a desired, progressive fashion. In other words, by creating the design in a certain way, we suggest and even control what a visitor looks at first, second and third. If you've ever been on a site where you didn't know where to even start reading, then you know what's it's like to see a design that had no concept of flow. A professional design will take this into consideration so that the website is effective and easy on visitors.

4. Content Management System

The days of online brochures are over. Today, business websites need to be dynamic and engaging. That means that business owners need to regularly add more content and information to their site through the use of blogs, galleries, discussion forums, news items, testimonials and so on.

A Content Management System allows business owners to log into their website and add more content without having to purchase additional software or go through any technical training.

Furthermore, with a CMS in place, website owners can make changes and modifications to their site themselves, saving them from expensive ongoing maintenance fees and invoices.

5. Social Media Integration

The last few years have seen an explosion in the use of social media. Businesses who aren't yet using Facebook and Twitter need to start, now. Part of social media marketing is making sure that there is a two-way flow of visitors and information between your website and your social networks. Visitors to your site should be encouraged to Like and Follow you. If a customer Follows you on Twitter, then every time you send out a Twitter message, they may see it. While this should not be used for straight advertising, there are certainly lots of great ways that businesses can use Twitter and Facebook to market to their customers in a social, engaging way. (See Facebook for Business and Twitter for Business.)

A professional web design company will not only ensure that your site has great social media integration, but will also assist with the setup of your social media accounts and provide guidance on how to use them.

6. Reliable Hosting

Your website uses a hosting server to make sure that it is available to all internet users all the time. Your hosting service also provides email service and raw statistics on your website's traffic. You will depend on your hosting vendor to keep your server up and running, and to deal with any maintenance or outage issues in a prompt and reliable fashion. Make sure that you give careful consideration to your hosting solution as the cheapest package available probably isn't the best solution for your business website.

7. Search Engine Optimization

SEO refers to making sure that your website is as attractive and accessible to search engines as possible. This includes concepts like meta tags, keyword analysis, page load time, robots, caching, content proximity, file and folder naming conventions, URL conventions, sitemaps and more. If you or your web designer aren't famliar with the latest SEO techniques, then it's likely that you will find it more challenging to get your website indexed by search engines and ranked well. SEO is also not something that can be successfully applied to any website. If a website is built poorly without any consideration for SEO, it may have to be completely rebuilt to get it right, so it's best to do it right from the start.

For instance, one technique for building a site that is a bane to search engines is the use of frames. Frames means that your site is divided into two or more sections. You have probably been to a site where the left sidebar is a navigation menu and if you a click a link, the content area to the right changes, leaving the menu sidebar intact. This used to be popular since it meant that the site designer only needed to update one file for the menu sidebar. However, this technique interferes with a search engine's ability to scan every page of your site and has largely been abandoned by professional web designers. If your site is built using frames, any good SEO company is going to recommend rebuilding your site from the ground up in order to improve your search engine optimization and rankings.

If you have additional questions, or would like a free estimate on having your own professional website designed, please contact us.