You’ve finally taken the plunge and started your dream business. Now all you need is the perfect website to take your business to the next level. You want something that will help your start-up to stand out from the crowd and put you head and shoulders above the competition.
Web design for start-ups is all about keeping it simple. The perfect website is one that is fast and easy to navigate, with clear calls-to-action and lots of engaging content. Here are a few basic tips that might help.
Domain Name
Your domain name is essentially the user’s first impression of your website. It’s the website name (e.g. www.cariadwebdesign.com) and you’ll need to purchase it from a domain registrar.
Remember when you were a teenager and you created a silly email address to make all your friends laugh? You definitely wouldn’t want anyone to know about that email address now. The same goes for domain name purchasing. Make sure you choose one that is relevant to your business and easy to spell, with no nonsense or made up words. A strong domain name makes a good first impression and is great for SEO.
Website Hosting
Web hosting is a service that provides the necessary technology for your site to be on the internet. Websites are stored on servers, which are essentially where your website ‘lives’. Web hosting companies specialise in storing and serving websites.
Choose a Great Content Management System
When it comes to selecting a Content Management System (CMS), we always recommend WordPress. It’s very straightforward and easy to use, meaning that if you want to make changes to the website yourself this can be done without any hassle. WordPress is flexible and scalable, so as your start-up grows, your website can grow with it and you won’t have to move everything over to a different platform.
WordPress also offers a wide range of plugins, meaning that you can add functionalities such as job boards or booking systems to suit any type of business requirements. WordPress sites are responsive and user-friendly, and have a built-in blog.
All Cariad Web Design websites are built with WordPress.
Content is key
This may seem obvious, but it’s something that is often overlooked in the process of designing a new website, as some developers are more focused on how the site looks and functions rather than on the quality of the content. To attract both customers and attention from the search engines, you need to create engaging, unique content that will intrigue your target audience and entice them to buy your products or services.
Create a content calendar so that you can plan your blog posts in advance, and easily upload them to WordPress. Regular blogs will help you to increase your search engine rankings, so it’s essential to update it regularly with new and relevant content. Research your keywords (or ask our SEO team for help!) and add these into your content calendar.
The content on your website will help you to build your brand identity, both in terms of imagery and text, so you’ll want to put together a set of brand guidelines to establish the tone and themes of your content.
SEO
Did somebody mention SEO? This is an essential one!
In order to build your online presence and increase your website traffic as a brand new business, you need to start ranking in the search engines as early as possible.
When we design websites, we ask our SEO team to make sure everything is optimised and indexed by search engines before the site goes live. However, SEO is an ongoing process, and we always refer to it as a marathon rather than a sprint. You’ll want to target long-tail keywords in your content to target a higher quality lead (SEO isn’t just about quantity), and also gain backlinks from other relevant websites.
Google Analytics
You’ll need to install Google Analytics and Google Search Console in order to track your site’s performance and website traffic. Using these tools you can analyse user behaviour, which pages are performing well and which have a high bounce rate, as well as the average time people spend on your site. You can also find page loading times, crawl errors on the site and broken links, giving you the chance to amend them as soon as possible.
Create a User-Friendly Interface
When it comes to web design for start-ups, a user-friendly website is a must-have. You will need to ensure that your website is responsive, meaning it can be used effectively on all devices. Fast page-loading speeds are essential to keep visitors on your site, and there are plenty of techniques you can implement to speed up your loading times, including optimising and compressing your images.
Your website needs to be simple and uncluttered with easy-to-read fonts, as well as having an intuitive navigation system that allows users to quickly get to the page they are interested in.
Incorporate lots of clear call-to-action buttons to encourage visitors to take the action you want, and ensure that all contact information is included.
These are all tactics that our team of experts use to create fantastic start-up websites. If you would like us to help you implement these ideas and turn your dream start-up website into reality, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
