The most important webpage a small business needs to tend to is the homepage. This is the first thing potential customers see. It needs to be fresh, fast-loading and it needs to be relevant. Slow graphic downloads will send people back to the search engines. If content on the home page is dated and is a few years old, it’s time to add some something new. Make a webpage for archiving if you want to keep old news on your website, but don’t have it showcased on the homepage. Out with the old and in with the new. How often should you be putting fresh content on your website? There really isn’t one right answer. If the year on the article doesn’t match the current year, pitch it.

Blinking, flashy graphics all over your homepage as part of your small business website design is also a bad idea. You would see this type of design a decade ago, but like white eye-liner and slap bracelets, it was a fad. It’s distracting to have little blinking gadgets all over your website, enticing visitors to “click here.” Now, more than ever, clean should be the theme of your website. Clean-looking websites are not only going to be well-organized, they also appear safer than the glitzy, disheveled websites of the past. Website bling (if overused) can give a sort of feel to the website that makes it seem unsafe, juvenile or selling a poor product. If the product or service is good, there is no need to bombard your website with flash, jazz and glitter. Less is more.

When your small business website design is complete, it should easily take your customers to what is important: the product. It should do it quickly, effortlessly and cleanly. It can sometimes be difficult when you’re selling a product that might not be very unique and you want that niche that makes your small business website stand out from the rest. You won’t get first place for adding banners, tickets and animations all over your website; find another way to stomp out your competition. Make sure your website is organized and ready for the 2011 business year.

There is an unusual acronym to remember some great ways to keep your customers in mind while constructing/updating your small business website: CRAP

Consistency: Common flow/feel as visitors browse your website

Repetition: Use appropriate repetition of imagery and text throughout

Alignment: A place for everything, and everything in its place. Don’t stick anything on the website for the reason of just “having it on there.”

Proximity: Make sure you group appropriate parts of your website together. Can your clients find what they need, easily?

Color is an important aspect of your small business design. Although consistency is important, choosing the right colors are a must to help you get the sale. Customers shop with their eyes; use colors that complement each other. You want them to be agreeable with the nature of the website, but not overwhelmingly bright or annoying to look at. You also don’t want a bland color palate. Try to pick one bold color, keeping the contrasting colors more neutral.

Advertising

Many small business websites have advertising space they can control. You really want to make sure that any advertising you have on your website is relevant to your small business. If you sell handbags, your best advertising would also be in accessories, clothing, cosmetics and so on. If you have a family member who has a tree stump removal business, they have no purpose on your website, family or not.

Finally, your patrons want to know what’s in it for them. Save a webpage to talk about you and your business; leave the rest to cater to the shopper. Talk about what they’re going to get when they do business with you. Make sure to mention everything from a detailed description of the product or service, right down to your mission statement, guarantees and return policies.

As much as we may pride ourselves on the time and love we spend on our small businesses, we have to remember that the consumer tends to be a bit more “selfish.” Their concern is a getting a great deal on a product or service on a website that’s easy to use and good-looking. Remember: If you don’t take care of your customers…someone else will.

Think Small
When your web pages are big, wordy and filled with images, it makes it hard for mobile phones to load them quickly. Keep your pages short and sweet. Potential clients aren’t likely to stick around and wait very long for your pages to download, so make sure you’ve compressed your website to maximize mobile phone viewing potential. This also means to minimize or completely rid advertisements from your website. When ads are allowed to roam free on your website, people are spending more time dealing with them than looking at your content. Advertising on your small business website will distort the layout of the page; it’s one of the biggest problems with mobile phone internet usage. Remember to keep your visual media to a minimum, as graphics will slow the page load.

Add Shortcuts
Make your website mobile phone friendly by making sure you’re offering viewers shortcuts easily to access the various pages within your website. Have links that get people to the top of the page, the bottom and easily back to the home page to avoid scrolling and shorten the time it takes to navigate to the content they’re looking for.

Finally, test your small business website for mobile readiness by checking it on your own mobile phone. Check it on a few different mobile phones if you can and work on the problem areas that you find. Make a mobile phone ready website part of your small business design as soon as you can, as more phones are hitting the market with great web-surfing technologies. Don’t lose out on potential revenue for your business because your website isn’t ready for the 21st century style to surf the internet.

These are free for you to use for personal and business use, except for resale. Make sure to come back everyday for new graphics to download.

This download file comes in 4 sizes: 1024×768, 1280×960, 1600×1200, and ipad (all are in one file).

Quick Tip:

Use this abstract design with the January 2011 calendar on your desktop to help you stay on track.

These are free for you to use for personal and business use, except for resale. Make sure to come back everyday for new graphics to download.

These are free for you to use for personal and business use, except for resale. Make sure to come back everyday for new graphics to download.

Quick Tip:

Use these to decorate your blog or add a sparkle to your website.

These are free for you to use for personal and business use, except for resale. Make sure to come back everyday for new graphics to download.

Quick Tip:

Use this frame to place your favorite holiday photo.

In a way, you would think that the digital revolution would have rendered business cards obsolete. These days, when you meet someone, it’s very easy to just pull out your smartphones and enter each other’s info straight into the phones, or – better yet – locate each other on social networks and start following and interacting with each other on those networks.

But my careful observation has taught me that business cards are still being used today, and in fact, people tend to ask for each other’s business cards first, and use their smartphones only if business cards are not available. Business cards are still an important marketing tool, and should still be used in combination with other offline tools such as brochures, and – of course – with online tools such as a website, a blog and social media accounts.

This means that business card design is still important, because if people collect hundreds of business cards, most of those will just get stuffed into some drawer and forgotten. If you want people to actually use your business card to contact you, you need to make sure it stands out. Which brings me to these business card design tips. They are basic, but important. Since the vast majority of business cards I see every day are boring and mundane, I guess many people still try to “save” on business cards by using cheap card stock and discount printers. Big mistake!

Business Card Design Tips:

1. Use a logo. Small business logo design is incredibly important, because a good logo can be used everywhere – including business cards, letterhead, brochures, and your website – and help you create a strong image and a powerful brand.

2. Make sure your business card is easy to read. The font needs to be large enough so that people can read it without straining their eyes, and you should never use light font on a light background or dark font on a dark background – those are very hard to read.

3. Make your card stand out. The best way to make sure your card does what it’s supposed to do – bring you business – is to avoid using a standard, boring design. Go for a heavyweight, high-gloss card stock and use bold colors, images and fonts. Flimsy or cheap-looking business cards can actually hurt your business by giving people the impression that you’re not a serious business. Boring, uninteresting cards will usually be ignored or tossed.

Of course, you shouldn’t only rely on your business card to market your business. Your goal is to use a wide range of marketing tools and to combine the power of offline and online marketing, so your business card shouldn’t ignore your online presence. On the contrary – it’s important to make sure that your business card includes not just an address, a telephone number and an email but also your website’s URL and, if applicable, your social media accounts’ URLs.

These are free for you to use for personal and business use, except for resale. Make sure to come back everyday for new graphics to download.

Quick Tip:

Just print these gift tags out and use them for Christmas presents.

These are free for you to use for personal and business use, except for resale. Make sure to come back everyday for new graphics to download.

Quick Tip:

Just print this 5×7 postcard out and mail it to someone special.