If you’re rooting around in the dark when it comes time to begin building your first business website, then you need to stop for research purposes.  The internet has all the information you’ll ever need to build a great business website.  All you need is the drive to learn.

Take the time now to start your journey to enlightenment, and check out a flash course in business website design.  Here is a brief synopsis, highlighting some of the most foundational aspects of a successful design to get you started on your way to the top. 

Navigation is vital to your design

Without the ability to move around, your website is incomplete.  Visitors need a way to explore all of the interesting content you create, so give it to them.  Traditionally, a stationary (or floating) navigation bar is sufficient enough to appease users.

Take a quick look at the design of this Milwaukee Accident Lawyer’s website.  The stationary navigation bar at the top of the design makes it easy to travel to and fro throughout the site’s information. 

Optimize for mobile users

Mobile users rule the traffic flow of today’s internet, so you’ll want to include them in your design thoughts.  Since mobile users are the majority online, your business website needs to be designed to display and function properly on a smaller screen. 

Add media queries to your business website design coding, and you’ll have a better domain for all the mobile surfers on the web.  Media queries detect the size of the screen currently viewing your content and rework the display to fit. 

Use social media as a visibility tool

Social media is a driving force behind much of the internet’s communication value.  People don’t just check their social media profile once a day.  People check their social media pages several times per day. 

Effectively linking your business website content to the flow of social media will boost your organization’s digital visibility.  Add social media sharing icons throughout your design so visitors can easily share something they find interesting as they browse. 

Encourage communication throughout

Communication will keep your business growing and changing for the better.  Once you learn to listen to the voice of your visitors, you can rework your design to fit the needs of the masses. 

In addition to your “Contact Us” page, add other effective measures within your design to engage visitors.  Try adding a contact number to your homepage, or you can add a “leave a comment” box to your blog posts. 

Learn the value of search engine optimization

Search engine optimization is designed to help you tweak your design in such a way that it ranks at (or near) the top of the SERPs (search engine results pages) when web users search relevant terms.  Ranking higher in the SERPs will give your business a boost in visibility and drive more traffic your way. 

By Chakraborty

Dr Chakrabarty is the Chief Innovation Officer of IntuiComp TeraScience. Earlier she was Assistant Professor of Delhi University, a QS ranked university in India. Before that she has held research positions in IIT Mumbai, IIT Chennai and IISc Bangalore. She holds 2 patents and over 20 research publications in her name which are highly cited. Her area of research is in smart technologies, integrated devices and communications. She also has a penchant for blogging and is an editor of Business Fundas.