Here are our top 10 considerations every small business should take into account when building a new website:
 

1. Clarity – Keep your website and content simple

• The overall layout of your website should be clean, simple, and not cluttered with too much information. It’s all in the KISS principle (Keep it simple, Stupid!)
• The main navigation should be visible at all times – and contain no more than 7 items. Extra menu items can be added to a secondary menu.
• Your home page should contain a clear description of who you are and what your business can offer. Don’t make people search for this information. Chances are they won’t, they’ll just go somewhere else.
• Your page content should have a visible hierarchy ie Page Headings the biggest text size, sub headings smaller, important text smaller again and so on.
• Don’t be afraid of white space! Spacing content out makes featured content stand out more, and reduces clutter on a page making it easier to read/follow.
• Important information should be kept above the ‘fold line’, ie the portion of your website a user can see without having to scroll down. Different users have different screen size, make sure you cater to them all.

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2. Contact information

It might sound like a no brainier but 60% of small business websites don’t list their phone number on their home page, and 66% don’t have a contact form to enable visitors to request information, meaning potential new leads are lost.

Your new website home page should include your contact phone number and/or email address in a place that is immediately visible. For example the top left or right corner of the page, or directly underneath a feature content area that showcases your main product or service.

If you make it difficult for users to find your contact information, they’re going to give up and go to a competitors instead.

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3. An obvious call to action

What do you want your website visitors to do on your site – do you want them to buy something? call you? view a list of your services or subscribe to your mailing list? Whatever your website goals are, you need to encourage the user to do it.

Positioning of call-to-action buttons is crucial for ensuring they get the attention you’re aiming for, and pushing users in the right direction. Getting traffic to your website is great, and good call-to-action buttons will have a positive impact, helping turn that traffic into sales.

Did you know that 60% of consumers feel at ease and are more likely to buy a product that has the word ‘guaranteed’ associated with it.

Read Smashing Magazine‘s article on Call to Action buttons and how to best use them.

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4. Engage users and build a relationship

Ever wondered why Pinterest use in Australia during April 2012 doubled to nearly 400,000 visits per week? or why over 4 billion videos are viewed a day on youTube? Visual content is booming in 2012. These websites are engage their users with visual offerings such as videos, images & photographs that can be liked, rated and discussed with other users or shared with friends.

Your website content should be a diverse range of content, imagery and where possible video for maximum appeal. Your can also further engage your customers by:

• Starting a Newsletter – This is a newsletter is a great way to communicate with your visitors about latest news, events, products and/or services. You may like to offer exclusive offers to signed up members such as pre-sale product purchases, or simply stay in contact with and be in the thoughts of your customers.
• Writing a Blog – Writing articles about your product / service will be of interest to your website visitors, and is a cheap and easy way to build relationships, and good for SEO ranking.
• Surveying your customers – Find out what your clients want, straight form the horses mouth. Free online Survey like as Survey Monkey or Survey Gizmo are available for reaching out clients for information/feedback.
• Using Social Media - 93% of customers say they want businesses to be available through Social Media. However less than 20 percent of small business websites have a link to their social media presence. Think social media is too hard or not worth the time? Learn how to incorporate it into your business with free classes to Media Bistro. They’ll teach you about the benefits, how to get set up on each platform, how to create meaningful content, and how to engage with your audiences across various sites. Twitter’s business center offer free lessons too.

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5. Testimonials

“If you’re like most people, before you lay down your hard-earned money on a product or service, you check it out first, whether by asking a friend, looking at the customer ratings online, or reading the testimonials” via

Testimonials increase your business credibility, build trust with your user and make your business appear more tangible.

Results-based testimonials are most effective, and in a short paragraph should include information about what it was like before using your product/service, what your product helped to increased/decreased during the period and finally the outcome.

For example:

“After using XYZ product/service for just 6 weeks,
I lost 2 inches from my waistline and can now fit
back into my favourite summer dress”

Testimonials should be specific and measurable in terms of figures, sales dollars, and/or time.

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6. Know some SEO

Let’s face it. If no one can find your website, then it’s not performing at it’s best. People expect to find your business product/service online, and if they can’t, they go somewhere else.
Having your website professionally designed will be good for your ranking as it will incorporate important things that search engines are look for such as heading titles, formatting, images with title tags etc.

• Each of your website pages should contain SEO keywords specific to that page. A good CMS such as WordPress will make this easy for you maintain yourself.
• If you have the budget, hire an SEO Specialist to help write some web copy for you, or generate back link.
• Don’t guess your keywords, use Google’s free Keyword Search Tool to research what your potential customers are searching, adwords.google.com
• Read some basic SEO tips from Google
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7. Know your competition

Do you know who your biggest competitors are in your local area, city, country and niche market? Start by researching them. Find other businesses offering a product or service similar to yours. What do their website, facebook page and twitter feeds look like? What are they doing well? What could they be doing better? And finally, how can you differentiate yourself from them?

• Narrow down your top 5 competitors and work out who their target audience is – what do they look like, where do they live. How well is your competition reaching them?
• Make a list of the things you like and dislike about their products/services, web presence, and website content.
• Grade the competition against each other and use the results as a basis for your new website.
• How are you different from these competitors, and why is your product/service better than theirs? Or perhaps a better question, how is it different from theirs?
• Is there anything you are doing that your competitors are not?
• What are you doing the same as your competitors, that can be used as a point of difference?
• Know the answer to these questions, and use the findings to further refine your website.

When you hire a web designer, give them this information. It’s a great way for them to fully understand what your business does, who your target market is, what your online goals are, and sets a benchmark for expectations.

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8. Know your market

Thinking of building an online store selling products for men, using the colour purple? Think again. A study by Joe Hallock in 2003 compared 232 people from 22 countries on colour preferences amongst various demographics. Of both genders, the colour blue reigned supreme, while females respondents loved the colour purple, it was not voted for once amongst male respondents. Read more about the study and findings here.

An infographic by Kiss Metrics suggests the use of colour can determine the type of shopper you attract. For example, Red and orange will attract an impulse buyer, while pinks and pastels will attract a more traditional/regular buyer.

View the Kiss Metrics infographic on Colour psychology.

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9. Be visually appealing

In one-twentieth of a second, less than half the time it takes to blink, people make aesthetic judgments that influence the rest of their experience with an internet site.
via

If your website looks cheap or unappealing, why would your product or service be any different? Good design at the front-end suggests that everything is in order at the back-end, and you don’t get a second chance at a first impression. When a website has a pleasant visual design, users are more relaxed, find the website more credible and easier to use. A positive first impression based on looks rather than interaction, determines the value of the website on the user’s behalf.

A websites visual appeal has been shown to have an impact on purchase intent, likelihood to re-visit a website, perceived trust and reliability of a business, and the perceptions of negative website attributes, which are sometimes are overlooked if the visual appeal is strong.

Some interesting stats:

• Colour increases brand recognition by 80% and brand recognition links directly to consumer confidence.
• 93% of consumers place visual appearance and colour above other factors actors while shopping.
• 42% of shopper base their opinion of a website on overall design alone.
• 52% of shoppers didn’t return to an online store because of overall aesthetics

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10. Be mobile friendly

Mobile internet except a web-browsing experience on their phones that is comparable to what they get on their desktop or laptop. via

We can’t stress this enough. The year 2011 saw a 400 percent increase in the number of mobile searches, with 74 percent of people using their mobile phones to search while running errands. 93 percent of small businesses aren’t mobile-friendly and “will not render successfully on mobile devices or smartphones”.

Find out more about what a mobile website is and how much they cost.

In 2012, more iPhones are sold every day than people are born, and smartphone sales (globally) are expected to increase by 25% from 472 million in 2011 to 630 million in 2012. More than 35 million apps are downloaded.

Check out a MBA Online infographic – A day in the life of the internet

Already have a website? The Responsinator will show you what it currently looks like on popular mobiles devices.

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Sources:

http://smallbiztrends.com/2011/12/2012-internet-marketing-trends.html
http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/are-small-business-websites-really-this-bad/5583/
http://www.writemysite.co.uk/a-clue-from-google-on-site-content-should-include-rich-media/2012/04/16/
http://blog.kissmetrics.com/color-psychology/
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/internet-day_b19376
http://www.mbaonline.com/a-day-in-the-internet/
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/217499
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/01/70037
http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/columnist/strauss/2010-11-07-strauss-ask-an-expert_N.htm
http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/marketingcolumnistkimtgordon/article66228.html
http://uxmyths.com/post/1161244116/myth-25-aesthetics-are-not-important-if-you-have-good-us
http://www.usabilitypost.com/2010/03/24/value-of-good-design/

http://www.alibrown.com/blog/2012/04/26/%E2%80%9Chow-to-get-testimonials-that-sell%E2%80%9D-by-ali-brown/

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That said, below is a list of things to consider when pricing a new website and mobile website. These prices are ballpark only and do not take into considering complex scenarios and requirements.

How much does a website cost?

Depending on the complexity of your website and what your website is trying achieve, a new website can cost anywhere between $1999 and $5000.

How much does a custom mobile website cost?

Similar to a regular website, mobile website development is dependant on your requirements and the complexity of your website. A ballpark figure would be approximately $700 – $5000, however we have a range of options to suit mobile websites big and small so please contact us for a quote.

Before having a mobile site developed, you need to determine who your mobile users are what your mobile site should achieve – an extract form our article Mobile Website v Responsive Design, what’s best for you?

Think about your users. What do you think your mobile users will be looking for on your website? For example, someone accessing a cinema website on a mobile phone is likely to be looking for direction to the cinema, movie times, cinema contact details etc. They are looking for immediate access to this kind of information and loading the entire website including sections like corporate information, reviews etc is not useful for the user, and slows down their browsing making the experience less pleasant.

A business mobile website works in the same way – your mobile website users may be customers/clients on the road looking for your business contact information, maps to your office/store location(s), quick access to your services/product listings. Including too much information will slow down access to a users access to this information.

You also need to consider your business operations, for example do your in-house sales people use blackberry’s or iphones, do you want to display video content etc. Like web browsers, some mobile devices display/render content a little different. These differences need to be factored into your overall solution.

Why can’t I use a free service to create a mobile website?

You’re right. There are free online services for creating a mobile version of your website, but let’s face it, not many online services come free without some type of catch, and free mobile services are no different. Many “free” services are offered in exchange for placing banner advertising on your site (which looks unprofessional / tacky) while others offer inflexible frameworks that do make your website more mobile friendly, but remove the styling that ties your website to your brand, have a generic templated look and feel, and offer very limited (if any) custom layout and navigation options.

Another thing to consider is that free services generally don’t come with free technical support so if anything goes wrong or you have any questions about how to make modifications to your site, you may end up paying a lot to have a Web Developer troubleshoot the problem.

Your best option based on quality and affordability

The most cost effective solution is to have your new website and mobile website built by mama rye at the same time. This way we can establish exactly what your website and mobile website goals are, and work with you to create a design that works best for both mediums, can be developed in the fastest timeframe, and maintain our high quality standard.

We have a range of packages to suit website and mobile website design requirements, or feel free to request a quote if you would like something a little more custom.

Website with CMS and Mobile Website Packages

One of our most popular packages includes the design and development of your website and mobile website.

• 2 unique layouts to choose from
• 2 rounds of changes to chosen design
• CMS for updating website content via a secure web based login, 24/7
• 1 x Email Subscription form (capture email addresses)
• Up to 15 pages
• News/article section
• Ability to publish News Items / Articles
• 1 x User input form e.g contact us form
• Transfer of content from old website to new one
• Access to Google Analytics website statistics
• SEO friendly content/image tagging
• XML Sitemap for regularly submitting new content to search engines
• Online User Manual
• Custom version of your website for mobile and smartphone users
• Custom mobile website home page
• Custom mobile website look and feel to match your website and company branding

Starting at $3499 - contact us to discuss this option today.

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Being a mobile user doesn’t always mean they are”mobile”. An increasing number of people are using their mobile phone to access the internet from home, from the couch in particular, so if you’re thinking about having a new website designed, making your website mobile friendly or creating a mobile version of your website, it’s important to consider how you will accommodate mobile users every kind.

What is a mobile website?

Custom Mobile website – developed with custom home page and navigation for fast access to most relevant information. Mobile website maintains business branding and theme.

A mobile website is a custom version of a website that has been designed specifically for display on mobile devices such as iPhones, iPads, Androids etc.

Mobile websites can have a custom homepages, custom content, and custom navigation so they are more relevant and digestible to mobile users, while continuing to maintain your company branding and website theme. You also have the option to display a combination of content – some new content just for mobile users, and some/all content from your existing website.

What is ‘Responsive Design’?

Responsive design adjusts the website layout to best fit the width of device being used.

Responsive design uses CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), the technology used to style most websites, to automatically detect the resolution (width) of your mobile device, and adjusts the layout to best fit that screen size.

Responsive design changes the visual display of a website only, however is not able to show custom content.

Responsive design styles can be applied to new or existing websites by applying a stylesheet that only mobile devices can see.

What are the advantages / disadvantages of both?

Mobile website – Advantages

• You can have a custom home page and navigation that links to the most important content
• Display extra/certain content to mobile viewers only
• If you like, you can have completely different content for mobile users, or maintain the same content as your regular website.
• Complete control of the Mobile Experience
• Allow users to Bookmark your site to their mobile phone desktop
• Give users the option to switching off your mobile website and viewing your full website instead

Mobile website – Disadvantages

• If you choose to have different content for mobile users, you will need to maintain two sets of content
• Possible maintaining 2 different sets of content

Responsive Design – Benefits

• No need to create any new content. Existing webpages and content remain the same, only the styling changes to make the site appear in a more optimum manner picture example
• Responsive design can be applied to existing websites – we can develop a CSS to overwrite your existing styles for mobile device
• the layout of a website changes according to the size of the screen it is being viewed on.

Responsive Design – Disadvantages

• The full image available on regular website will be downloaded on a mobile device before being resized to fit the screen. This consumes unnecessary bandwidth.
• We can easily tell some website elements not to display on mobile devices, however in most cases it doesn’t stop them from being downloaded in full taking up unnecessary bandwidth.
• Content cannot be changed. If your website is responsive, it will display the same content to both small and large screens, the only thing that changes is the formatting.

Mobile Website v Responsive Design, what’s best for you?

Now that you understand the difference between the two concepts, it’s time to think about what will work best for you.

Think about your users. What do you think your mobile users will be looking for on your website? For example, someone accessing a cinema website on a mobile phone is likely to be looking for direction to the cinema, movie times, cinema contact details etc. They are looking for immediate access to this kind of information and loading the entire website including sections like corporate information, reviews etc is not useful for the user, and slows down their browsing making the experience less pleasant.

A business mobile website works in the same way – your mobile website users may be customers/clients on the road looking for your business contact information, maps to your office/store location(s), quick access to your services/product listings. Including too much information will slow down access to a users access to this information.

A Responsive Design might be best if:

• You have a fairly simple website that only needs to respond visually, not show custom navigation/information.
• Your main goal is to make your website performs reasonably well on mobile and smartphone devices.

A Mobile Website might be best if:

• Want to customise your mobile site, giving mobile users a better experience by making available or hiding certain information
• You would like your mobile website to have a custom home page
• You want your mobile website to load fast and not load unnecessary images
• Allow users to make the choice of whether to view your mobile website or switch to the full website version

I need to make my website mobile friendly, where to next?

If you would like more information on our mobile and responsive design services, or to further discuss what the right option is for you, please phone mama rye on (02) 8003 5163 or send us an email.

We have various packages and services available for creating custom mobile websites, and can develop a responsive design for your current website.

Please send us a quote request with some information about your needs, and we will respond within 48 hours.

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After a discussion with Ross, we decided to theme the branding and website in a style that reflected his business specialisation, running and run event training. For the logo, we incorporated the image of an impala because they’re fast, but their running style appears effortless. We styled the website like a running event bib to tie the website layout back to the overall theme. We also included a rotating speech bubble on the home page that lists upcoming run events in his city that can be periodically updated via the CMS.

The website has since been showcased in several inspirational web design blogs including www.webdesignfact.com,
www.thebestwebdesigns.net and www.land-of-web.com.

Please take a look at the final results below:

Logo Design

Website Design with CMS

Promotional Flyer

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