Website Development

WEBSITE ACCESSIBILITY - WHY IT’S IMPORTANT

What is website accessibility?

Website accessibility basically means that your website is designed and coded so that it is as easy to access and interact with for people with disabilities as it is for those without disabilities. For example, an accessible website enables a blind person to still choose colours on products on an e-commerce site because the products have good descriptions.

An accessible website allows the largest audience to successfully navigate and take action on your site. Yes, you might think that it’s not that important. A lot of businesses do. However, when someone is blind or visually impaired, it’s important to service them as well. 

Blindness is just one example of disability. It doesn’t mean that if a person is blind, they won’t be interested in purchasing from you. Let’s say you have a mountain bike shop. Blind people won’t participate in mountain biking, and why would they even consider using your products, right? 

Perhaps they’re buying for a loved one or a friend. Maybe they want to find out what your location is. Indeed, they might not use your products directly. Still, your website content needs to be accessible to that person because every visitor has a different reason for visiting your website. 

Other website-accessible issues to be concerned about

Different disabilities (or challenges) exist, and there are different ways to define what ability actually means. Let’s take the thought in a different direction than vision. Your audience might be teenagers, and for them, there might be the issue of too much info on your website that it’s too overwhelming. They’d never click through to take action. This affects accessibility too. Structuring your content for an audience who needs focus and clarity, is all about having clean designs, clear content and CTAs (call-to-actions) that are visible and easy to access. No one thinks about targeting someone that has trouble focusing…

It’s a broad spectrum of where ability falls, and your website needs to be able to reach all those people. Think a bit further about someone who went mountain biking and injured their arm and can’t use the mouse, but they want to buy a new helmet on your website. That person needs to be able to purchase from your website without using a mouse. All these scenarios form part of web accessibility. 

Is there any standard to follow to ensure website accessibility?

Some businesses in Canada and the United States are federally mandated to meet specific standards of accessibility. There aren’t any strict laws about website accessibility in South Africa yet. Experiencing a slight relief that you won’t pay a penalty fee for your website not meeting accessibility requirements? Read on.

If you’re considering doing it yourself, it’s possible. However, it’s not easy in terms of understanding and knowing how to implement it. It’s a bit more complex than a DIY website. Unfortunately, it’s also not something you can buy, such as a WordPress theme that has accessibility built into it. A specific WordPress theme might emphasise good colour contrast, suitable for people with all types of vision issues. But if it doesn’t address keyboard navigation, then it’s not the complete thing.

You have to be, in some way, on some level, able to assess whether what you’re seeing is truly going to meet your business needs for accessibility, and that’s when you want to turn to accessible content.

For example, if you own a store, you’d think about having a ramp for wheelchairs, right? The same thinking that goes into a physical store, should go into your website because it’s your online store. It doesn’t matter if you’re a bank, a bakery or a barber shop; it applies to everybody. Yes, it’s broad, but fundamentally it applies to every business.

If you’re looking for guidelines, an excellent place to start is using the Web Accessibility Guidelines WCAG – Overview and Guidelines (international standard). These aren’t tied to one country. It’s a standard of guidelines for people to follow and help ensure core accessibility for websites. Specifically for websites, it’s an international standard for many countries with accessibility laws. They refer to it as part of their requirements.

What’s the business case for spending extra money and time to get your website accessible?

Will you really get sued, and police will come knocking down the door because you’re not accessible? No. But let’s talk about opportunity cost. 

Approximately 7.5% (3 million) of South Africans have some sort of disability. By ignoring accessibility standards or not seriously looking into the business case, you’re potentially saying no to that 7.5% of customers. That’s just across the board and a very clear business case. 

A website should reach the largest audience, and that’s what all businesses want to do. An inaccessible website is purposefully, or accidentally (the end result is the same), excluding a large portion of the population. But now that you know, it’ll be purposeful if you don’t comply. 

The broad audience you’re catering for also includes search engines. Website accessibility, fundamentally, is just really good coding practices and is favoured by search engines. Everything you do to make your website more accessible for people will also make your content more accessible for search engines. Better search results and more clear search results. Remember, Google only wants to serve its customers good content. They’re looking for good content, and if your website is accessible, it can find your content.

How to balance these things if you don’t have budget for it?

Unfortunately, it’s crucial to build a good business website. You’re reaching a broader audience, but fundamentally, you’re building it on a better code for search engines and ensuring your website is future-friendly. There are really good business reasons for doing this, and emphasising accessibility should be something to talk about.

It’s our job to educate you and tell you that it is serious because if you’re a business owner with one user unable to use your website, that user will take their business elsewhere. Yes, one might not seem like a threat, but do you know how many people with disabilities actually visit your site?

It minimises the risk to your business. If Google can read your website, then a screen reader can read it, and so can Alexa and other voice-activated machines, which help people with disabilities or challenges to interact with your website. 

We’re talking about minimising risk and increasing diversity. If that’s important to your business (which it should be), then that is good for your brand. It shows that you’re committed to a larger group of people, and that could also be used in your marketing materials. It’s also essential depending on the type of business you’re running.

We can’t think of any business that doesn’t want to maximise risk, lower its customer base and exclude people, do you?… That’s a recipe for disaster.

Don’t underestimate your audience. Think about the blind contestant in the one Master Chef season. Who would’ve thought a blind person could be a contestant in a cooking show?! Yes, she had help, but she did the cooking herself. 

There are various cases and feedback from people who use websites that aren’t accessible. It takes you beyond what you might have defined as a disability or challenge and how they use websites. We have very narrow views, and we need to start changing that. 

An example is text on videos for people with hearing problems and dyslexia when it comes to over-complicated sentences and too many paragraphs. That’s where you need a copywriter to make your content concise. People with Parkinson’s struggle to navigate with a mouse is another example to consider. Unfortunately, it’s reality.

Great websites that are accessible are just great websites and add to the user experience. Our generations are ageing, and it will affect all types of technology, not just websites.

If your website was built 2 to 3 years ago by a developer not aware of accessibility issues then, is it easy to retrofit now to make it more accessible?

Nothing is impossible. It’s not easy, but possible. It’s what the path is. Unfortunately, accessibility hasn’t been put first for most of the history of web development (it’s only been around for the last 20 years, but still). There are a lot of websites out there that need to go back, and we call it remediation – make it whatever your accessibility requirements are. Obviously, the bigger your website, the more work it requires to make it accessible… 

There’s no simple, silver-bullet solution; there’s no theme to install to magically make your website accessible. If your business is growing and has ambitious plans, you should be working with a developer who specialises in this. A DIY-er could start with the best intentions by having a baseline and working towards accessibility. Map out a plan to ensure you’re working towards it.

Accessibility is a marketing tool, really. This is what we’re investing in for our audience. For example, if you know your audience is in their 40s, the text needs to be bigger, and there needs to be contrasted with colours – white on a yellow background doesn’t work… There’s also layout and spacing – and so the list goes on. 

An accessibility-first perspective will save you a lot of time from the beginning. Know who your audience is. It’s an excellent place to start. Use clear captions on products – it’s good juice for Google. Nothing is worse than customers telling you your website is difficult to use.

If you’re concerned about your website’s accessibility, reach out to us and let’s see how we can help you. 

May 2023 be prosperous for you and your business! 

Warm regards, 
Ribbit. 

landing-page-for-campaign

If someone advised you to create a specific landing page for a particular campaign or market, you might have thought, ‘but I have a website with specific pages’; ‘why should I have a landing page’; or ‘isn’t my home page my landing page’? Well, yes and no…

What is a landing page?

Let’s put a landing page into context. Suppose your visitors primarily land on your home page from some source that might have led them there, then yes. In that case, your website’s home page is your landing page, or any other page on your website, for that matter. For example, suppose you post a Facebook post speaking about your services and direct traffic through a URL (or link) to your services page. In that case, that is the intended landing page. 

However, we suggest standalone landing pages for specific campaigns or markets in the digital world. It’s pretty technical. Let’s explain this further. Suppose you have a plumbing business with a nicely set up website with your home page, services, etc. Still, from your Google Analytics, you see that a new service you offer gets the most attraction from a specific location; you most certainly want a landing page specifically for those users. It creates more relevance to the users within that region. 

Another angle is that you’re still a plumbing business owner, but you only purchase your products from ABC Plumbing Supplies, and you have a solid, long-term relationship with the supplier. You can negotiate with the supplier to reference you on their website after people have purchased as ‘recommended plumbing services’ with a link to your website. Because traffic will be sent purposefully from their website, it would be wise to create a landing page for those users, offering them a discount. 

It’s a win-win. You purchase from the supplier, just as anyone else. So the supplier generates revenue. You get recommendations from the supplier offering people discounts on your services. Soon the news spreads that people who buy from the supplier get discounts from you. It’s an ecosystem, really… 

What are the requirements of a good landing page?

There are no rules for best practices. Simply put, the landing page should be readable and clear with the information users are looking for. Is there a formula for a high-conversion landing page? Honestly, there is no rule book, but if it converts users at a higher rate than average, you have a winner! 

There really are no industry benchmarks, even if sources say there are. The only measure you need to be conscious of is the landing page outperforming the previous version. If your current landing page is your first, then you don’t really have a previous version to compare it to. However, comparing it to the conversion of your website in general, or a specific page, is a good start. 

Just to get back at conversion – it refers to the point at which a person performs a specific action. It can be anything from buying an item, submitting their details through an online form, or making a call. It can also be someone viewing your store locator or about us pages. These are usually called micro-conversions or preliminary conversions with higher conversion rates than the home page because people might not take action immediately, but they would first want to learn more about you or see where your stores are to visit in person. 

Nevertheless, a good or successful landing page c-o-n-v-e-r-t-s. The landing page is either good or bad; there’s no in-between. 

A/B testing for your landing page

When should you be doing A/B testing on your landing page? Immediately. As mentioned before, when you build your landing page, test it against your landing page. Use your primary page. A/B testing is also known as split testing. It means splitting the audience to test campaign variations and determine which performs better.

Remove branded data from your A/B testing – all traffic generated from people typing your website URL in any browser and those searching your business name directly. You can choose different filters of how many users see which pages, for example, only people from specific locations or one location but with a split of 30/70 or 50/50 on the separate pages. 

You can play around with variables such as headings, buttons, colours, images, etc., but copywriting is the most important. The other variables are easy to test, except for the latter. Doing this guarantees that you will see changes in your conversion rates. 

Can I do A/B testing myself?

If you don’t have budget for an agency, you can build landing pages for your website yourself. There are great tools out there to do it on your own. Google Optimize is one such tool. It’s not a page builder but a tool to assist you with showing you which message or page engages and delights your customers and gives you the solutions that you need to deliver them.

It’s a drag-and-drop interface with filter options. You can play around with it, and when you’re ready, you can add the given script to the top of your specific webpage page to overwrite. For example, you can decide who will see the page greeting visitors with ‘Welcome our beloved client’ or ‘Welcome John’. 

Other tools include Optimizely and Visual Website Optimizer. Unfortunately, they cost money, but they have more features to offer and are fun and easy to use.

Can I create a landing page in WordPress?

You probably could, but we wouldn’t recommend it. Content Management Systems (CMSs), such as WordPress, are built for content-driven websites that change dynamically. They aren’t considered landing page builders but rather a way of uploading content regularly. 

There is no correct or incorrect way of using WordPress as a landing page builder. Still, it will take longer to create than using a tool, as WordPress was built initially for bloggers – to publish posts and constantly upload/update dynamic content. 

Tools to create your own landing pages

Tools to create a landing page include, Unbounce, Lead Pages, and Webflow. Unbounce offers A/B testing, drag-and-drop features, templates, good data, and it’s inexpensive. You’ll need a basic understanding of CSS or HTML, but in one session, you can get a landing page up as soon as possible – easy enough for a self-starter. 

Webflow is extremely advanced on the design side. It’s not a drag-and-drop but has a responsive grid. The tool is flexible for building high-level CSS and HTML landing pages, which allows for blogs, products & e-commerce. It has many features, except for A/B testing, but then you could use Google Optimizer to test various elements. 

Remember, testing copy on the landing page is the most important, not the font, typography, or buttons. It doesn’t matter which tool you use or which template you choose. There’s no chance in this world that it will help you write the correct words. Don’t get us wrong. The visual elements are also essential, but those are merely preferences. It won’t increase your conversion rate, even when great images are used. 

It is crucial to test the info – how you say, what you say and where you say it. It’s about moving sections and paragraphs around, with the most important content at the top. It’s important to test and not follow your own gut because you are the business owner, and 99% of the time, business owners don’t know the core frustrations of their customers. They know their business too well and want to include jargon that users don’t find helpful or understand. 

What call to actions are the best to use on landing pages?

This depends on what you want the user to do. However, before just adding buttons everywhere, you need to define the landing page’s purpose and who it is for. You need to determine where your users are in the buyer’s journey too. Are they only becoming aware of a product or service now, or are they visiting to make a call for a consultation?

Everything on the landing page needs to be written with the above mapped out. You’ll then understand that people in the awareness phase don’t need to see prices immediately. In contrast, people who are lower in the funnel understand that what they need will cost money, but they would want to know why you are the best and why they should choose you. Here is where you emphasise your knowledge and expertise. 

The same goes for your call to actions. 

Considerations for hiring someone to set up your landing pages

When approaching a marketing agency for landing pages, we would suggest asking for previous work that is currently live or previous work with stats. Ask for references as well. 

If it’s a start-up or someone new trying to build themselves up, they might also be good at this but might not have the portfolio or references yet, consider them as well. But don’t trust someone with no track record. A great way to start your landing-page journey with a digital partner is to have a sense of the quality of their work done. 

Also, consider choosing someone who quotes per project than per hour. This way, you won’t end up with an excessive invoice compared to what you’d initially budgeted for. 

However, we hope you land on our doorstep!

Warm regards,
Ribbit. 

A website maintenance plan is like a vehicle with a full service history

Can you imagine driving your car without having to service it ever – changing the oil, the air filter, from time to time the fuel filter and spark plugs? No, you can’t because sometime in the future, it will break down and leave you stranded. If your website is older than 2 years and 7 months without any website maintenance plan, you should read this.

The same goes for a website. It needs a website maintenance plan, either monthly (which is the highly recommended option), quarterly or yearly. You can’t expect a website from launch to last 10 years without any downtime, bugs or breaches. Technology doesn’t last forever, and we, including your website, need to adapt to these changes. 

Regular website maintenance

Many small businesses tend to ignore this because they see a website as a one-and-done project. Everything works fine, and there isn’t budget for unnecessary costs, right? Take our word, you’ll end up experiencing a huge surprise if you avoid a regular website maintenance plan, and not in a positive way…

Unfortunately, maintenance doesn’t have a tangible benefit that you can see, but it’s absolutely critical. Everything in all industries is being maintained. For example, iPhone – there are older mobile handsets that can’t receive the latest software updates because it’s not compatible anymore. There is new security, new code, and new features.

So do CMSs and servers (PHPs) also get outdated. Older versions aren’t available anymore due to at least one new version being released each year. Therefore regular maintenance is undoubtful a definite must. An old un-maintained website might reach a point where upgrading isn’t longer possible. Then you have two options: rebuilding the site completely or doing band-aid fixes to temporarily keep the site limping along. 

Therefore, being proactive and maintaining the site regularly will have a much smaller impact when the tech environment changes. For example, you want to get from point A to point D, but you can’t jump from point A to D; you’ll have to move through points B and C – incremental updates that hold much more benefits. 

Regular plugin maintenance

Some CMSs (Content Management Systems) also have plugins that need updates. Plugins are created for a specific scratch a person might have and are often abandoned. They’re not sustainable if not updated regularly or replaced with an alternative. 

The more plugins your website has, the more your website is at risk. As a website owner, you should know how many plugins your website has and what they are used for. Some are necessary and not all bad, but it’s good to know these things when your digital agency charges you a maintenance fee. 

If these things aren’t maintained, you’ll get to a point where your website can’t be updated and is stuck at the level of a rebuild. We know this is a difficult conversation because you’ll question the validity of everything, and relationships get affected, but diligence is key. 

Ensure you know which plugins are present, how much they cost, and what the renewal costs are, and take note that if there is a bug or glitch in the plugin, it’s not the digital agency’s accountability, but we are responsible for showing out red flags. 

Again, changing the tyres on your car or the breaks will ensure that your car works and doesn’t fall apart at that moment, but the future is uncertain – the environment might change. There will be breaking changes, but if you just leave it, some things will work and others won’t, and you’ll be left with a few options. 

Continual development

Plans change during every project as the requirements change for a higher ROI. These changes affect website changes. For example, a small business owner requires a CRM system which wasn’t part of the initial brief. Still, a website should enable a shift with the business and its requirements. 

If you have an online shop, it needs to be re-merchandised every two to three weeks to improve the users’ buying journey, which will affect the flow of your website. Perhaps not the whole page and every page, but these adoptions happen. 

Continual development – adding new features or options that weren’t available when the site launched – also happens with small businesses. There are additions of new products, info, pages and more suitable images. If a new service is added, it should get an enquiry form. A general question could be detected from the enquiry form, and later on, it gets added as a new form field. 

Landing pages that don’t get the hoped-for conversions need copy or image adjustments. Yes, the owner provides all the necessary info at the beginning, but no one will get it right the first time. The above are all continual development and usually form part of the agreed-upon maintenance plan.

We use tools to see how people interact with your website. With screen heat mapping, we can see where people are looking as they scroll and interact with the site – how they tap on links, click on images, and fill out forms. Don’t worry; data security is present. We can’t see details and passwords as the tool blurs this info out automatically. 

However, there are different audiences, and they use websites differently. For example, the not-so-tech-savvy users and those with disabilities. Users go through different phases of the buyer’s journey, especially on e-commerce sites. Hence, checking and testing everything regularly. Are forms working as they should, or are there irrelevant forms without interaction on the site? 

Test, test and test and update in small chunks rather than one big chunk that’ll cost you much more. You can’t renovate a house all in one go. You need to prioritise which bits are more important. Which room will you start with first? 

Have some form of maintenance to adapt your website to fit into an ever-changing environment.

Remember, don’t limp, leap!
Ribbit.

Website shortcuts anyone should avoid

When starting to design and develop your website, there are certain website shortcuts to avoid. This is not a gospel type of thing from digital marketing agencies. Even if you don’t have budget, avoid the following couple of website shortcuts we’ll discuss –

1. Skipping usability testing

One of these website shortcuts is website usability testing – a very valuable thing to do that you certainly can’t skip. It’s often the first thing that gets cut down due to budget constraints; however, every single website needs this process. 

Basically, usability testing is simply getting someone in a room in front of your website, asking them to perform four or five tasks and observing them to see if they can actually get to the point where you want them to end up. They’ll click around the website and have certain facial expressions. This will determine if the actions given to them are straightforward or frustrating. 

Why do we do this? We want you to think about one particular website that annoys the living hell out of you. Still, unfortunately, it is something you have to use for some reason… That’s why! It’s testing if the site is clear enough to tell its users exactly what you need them to do. Or guide them through a process of where they want to be. 

One usually pays for usability testing, but the cost can’t be compared to the conversions you want. You might think that your wife and kids could do this, right? It’s not ideal for family, friends or board members to perform the usability testing. They’ve probably already interacted with the website, or they understand the business and the jargon.

It’s recommended to invite just 3 members that fit your target audience’s profile, pay them for an hour and so, gather the feedback and rework the website structure from there. We also recommend doing it monthly if new sections, new info and new promotions are loaded. 

Other options also exist, such as companies that do this online, record the session and provide you with a copy. You can choose to do this once-off, per project, or monthly. If you want to know more, visit Steve Krug’s website, a usability expert who wrote a helpful book, ‘Don’t make me think’. 

2. Using pre-designed themes

We understand that budget concerns push most people in the direction of using pre-designed website themes. However, choosing a theme and shoving content into it is another one of the famous website shortcuts and are plainly doing things backwards. Your website content should guide the design and not the other way around. 

Using a website template or theme also restricts you to what you most possibly want to do later. You can’t put things where you want it. In the future, when you are ready to build on your website, it’ll cost you extra to hire a developer to work on the massive pile of stylesheets and unnecessary code. These themes are usually designed and developed for everyone – making it bloated and adding to speed issues.  

Yes, these themes are flexible in dragging in dropping content and images on pages, but we wouldn’t recommend using them because it wasn’t explicitly considered for your company. So if you can afford it, build your website without a preset theme or template. 

3. Sliders & carousels

Website sliders and carousels are popular with clients but not preferred by developers. We understand that every department wants to promote something on the homepage, but your home page isn’t your only landing page. 

If everyone wants to promote something on the home page, it’s basically screaming at your audience. In fact, statistics show that most users don’t engage with website sliders anyways. Those users that do click on the sliders usually only click on the first one because it’s in their faces, but they don’t sit there and wait until the next one loads. Instead, they move on to looking at the menu and the pages and reading the content. 

Why would your competitors or the industry use it and not you? Because they’re not aware of the stats, but now that you know, you can be the industry leader. Strive to be better than them, not imitate them; otherwise, you’ll always be left behind. 

If you’re in a position where your boss wants sliders or carousels, at least ensure you can track the clicks and measure the click-through rate on them all, then go back to your boss after six months with the stats and get rid of it. 

We suggest the following as an alternative to website sliders and carousels: Have four or five hero images and load them randomly on page load. Loading fewer images will make your website speed faster. Avoid 5 to 7 images on a single page; it just adds too much weight to the site. Also, come up with a monthly/weekly editorial calendar to present different messages – it helps to focus on one message at a time, having important content in a systematic, planned approach.

4. UX problems

  • Pop-Ups: Avoid wanting to add pop-ups to encourage users to subscribe to your newsletter. Users that aren’t interested will insert a non-active email address if they can’t find the exit icon, or they will leave the site. Users who are not interested but signed up anyways are less engaging when you send out bulk emails because they weren’t interested. If users are interested in signing up for newsletters, they will search specifically for it in the footer or on the contact us page.
  • Click here to do this and that: Avoid using click here, click here, click here… It doesn’t give the user any context, and neither does it tell Google what users are clicking through to. Many people use screen readers due to disabilities, and if they hear click here the whole page through, you’ll have them confused and irritated. Read more about why you shouldn’t use ‘click here’. 
  • Above the fold: ‘I want this content above the fold.’ There’s no such thing. Every screen – phone, tablet, laptop, monitor – has its own screen dimensions, and that’s why it doesn’t exist. Refer to I am the fold if you don’t believe this.

5. Neglecting micro-copy

One of the last website shortcuts we want to discuss today. Micro-copy refers to the little text/messages users receive. For example, after submitting an online form, saying ‘Thank you, we received your email…’. Neglecting these types of messages and letting a developer writes them instead of a content writer will result in the wrong brand voice and tone. This could send an incorrect impression of your brand. For example, if you have a website for donations or any other emotional connection, and the thank you message is ‘Hi! Thank you for your message.’, instead of ‘We appreciate your support and want you to know this will go a long way. Thank you.’ it’s an issue. Ensure your micro-copy fits your brand. 

Get in touch with us if you want to know more about do’s and don’ts and how to avoid other common website mistakes.

Warm regards,
Ribbit.

creating a website

Have you recently embarked on a journey to create a start-up? Or have a small to medium business doing so well lately that you’re thinking of creating a website?

That’s great! You are ready to take the next step from establishing your business to telling the world about it. Creating your online footprint.

We know creating a website can be daunting, but before hopping onto a WordPress or Wix theme, you should consider a few things. Yes, these content management systems provide a lot of potential. But will it distinguish you from your competitors? Will your images connect with your audience, and will your text speak to your customer?

The success of creating a website comes down to planning, structure and goals.

Planning your website

  • You know what you want, but do you know what your current or potential audience wants?
  • Do you know what your current or potential audience looks like? 
  • Do you know where your target audience is located? 
  • Do you know exactly what you’re trying to put out there? 

These questions are vital, and your approach should be customer-first. Modern users all ask the same question – ‘What’s in for me?’. With every product, service, or system advertised, you should clearly understand how it will solve a problem or eliminate a pain for your audience.

Before structuring your website, you need to think about the navigation. How would users move through your website to find what they’re looking for? What will be the first thing they’d be most interested in, and perhaps, what not?

Your overall website needs to convince your audience to buy, and many elements need to be webbed to achieve this. Your images, content and call-to-action elements will have to create an emotional connection with your users.

Have you analysed your competitors? Specific questions about who your competitors are, where they are located, what they are offering, and what makes you unique compared to them need to be clearly defined.

Structuring your website

When you have all the information from the planning phase, you can only then think about structuring your website. You need to think about the most essential content your users will want to see first. For example, if you have a nail salon, that is most probably what your audience wants to see – pictures of your work!

But pictures alone won’t convince them to choose you instead of the nail salon around the corner. The correct words need to be present to explain exactly what they can expect. An expensive yet personalised experience or a quick in-and-out with maybe a neck massage?

Users want the experience from your website first. Will you be showcasing your nail salon’s atmosphere, the type of products you use, or the additional services? For example, if you’re located in a business area, you’d want to convey that clients could come for a quick in-and-out with enough professional staff assisting during lunch breaks. On the other hand, a much more relaxed environment can be expected if you’re located in a residential area.

Even if you have all the answers to the questions above, how would you convey your message correctly? Planning the content of your website is crucial. For example, will you have a home page with additional pages, or will a one-pager (or brochure-type) website with a gallery (for a nail salon) be sufficient for your small business?

If you have a lot of content, additional pages will probably be the best. Additional pages (or continuous pages as we like to call them) include anything from extra product or service pages, who you are, your qualifications, staff with images to make your audience feel comfortable knowing who they’d be dealing with, and a contact page with all your contact details and location.

There are tools to assist with the planning and structuring, such as Slick Plan, Google Drawing, Google Slides, FreeMind, and Mind Meister, should you want to try this yourself. Start with the free trials or the basic plans to determine which one works best for you. But if you’re someone who tends to go down the rabbit hole with a new tool, we suggest good old pen and paper.

Another critical aspect to consider is how quickly you want to go to market? Do you want everything about your business to go live at once, or are you eager to go live with the minimum viable product (MVP)? Meaning not every bell and whistle, but instead of the core to start gaining traffic and get feedback from your users through analytics and build from there. If your website might be content-heavy, we suggest the latter because there are dangers in receiving feedback that you weren’t hoping for. 

Your website goals

This brings us to the last, but not least, important aspect to consider when creating a website – your goals for your website. There are various website goals, including:

  • Enhancing brand awareness among your audience
  • Increasing overall website traffic
  • Improving ranking for important keywords
  • Improving on-site user experience (UX)
  • Lowering the bounce rate
  • Increasing the average number of pages visited by each user
  • Increasing email subscribers
  • Improving conversion rates
  • Generating more qualified leads
  • Generating more sales

Once you have a clear understanding of your website goals, you’ll be able to determine what needs to be done to reach your SMART goals, such as keeping your site running with regular updates.

In the old days, when you had a website, the likelihood for your website to be found was pretty good. But now, with competitors being so plenty, marketing is needed, especially where your target audience is. For example, if you’re a nail salon, they are probably on Instagram. But if you offer accounting services, they might be on LinkedIn or Twitter, where the business-to-business (B2B) marketing happens. Choosing the channel also depends on the age range. If you’re targeting youngsters, you won’t find them on Facebook but instead on TikTok.

There are various other factors to consider, but social media is a good medium because people can refer you, which is crucial because the modern audiences purchase primarily based on their peers’ experiences.

If you can’t afford an agency and want to do it yourself. It’s not impossible. But we can’t express the fact more that understanding the problem you’re trying to solve and who will be the most likely (primary and secondary) to purchase from you is the starting point.

If you need assistance in creating a website, reach out to us. We’ll set up some time with you for a detailed discovery process to understand your business and advise on the best way for marketing. Who knows, with all the questions we ask, you might just end up with another product or service in mind to add to your offering…

Best of luck,
Ribbit.