Your small business website checklist

If you’re one of the many soloists who look after your own website, this small business website checklist will help make sure it’s in good shape.

Design features and readability

• Is there anything on your site that blinks, is animated or makes a noise when a visitor arrives at your site? If so, turn it off or delete it straight away. Sites that automatically play music or throw pop-ups in your face are very annoying and very outdated.
• Does your text sit against a contrasting background colour? Instead use more white space. Specify spacing requirements for headings, subheadings, bullet points and general paragraph text. This makes it much easier for your visitors to absorb information from your site. Your overall design should be compelling enough to do your brand justice and leave the text to work its magic in the white background space.
• How readable are your fonts? The best web friendly fonts are Arial and Verdana.

Content and navigation

• Do you take your reader from point A to point B in a logical sequence? Using plenty of internal links within the text will help you do this.
• Ensure you have a clear and logical navigation system to take your reader through your website – and provide an easy way for people to find their way back to your home page every step of the way.
• Does each page have something compelling to offer or something of interest and value to your target audience? Every single page they visit is an opportunity for you to engage with them and provide valuable information, so put some thought into your content to make sure your website does this.

User friendliness

• Does your design work at different resolutions? Have you tested it across various platforms, including those used by both PCs and Macs?
• Has it been tested on mobile applications as well?
• Are your pages print-friendly?
• Usability needs to work from your perspective too. Have you installed Google Analytics and set up the report to be emailed to you weekly? The data can be quite interesting and allows you to make some meaningful conclusions, and, where necessary, tweak your site to make it more effective.

Authenticity and engagement

• Is all the information on your ‘Contact us’ page on your small business website up to date? Are all the links and forms there working? (I learnt the importance of this the hard way just recently, so learn from my experience and make a note to yourself to check it regularly).
• Have you included videos? They engender trust and are a useful tool for demonstrating that you’re a real business.
• Do you ask for feedback? This is a great way to engage with your customers and continually improve your site and your offers to meet their needs.

Be easy to find

• Have you added your site to free search engines and directories? There are literally hundreds on the web. Good ones to start with include flyingsolo.com.au/directory, www.google.com/addurl.html , www.searchenginecolossus.com, www.bigroo.com , www.truelocal.com.au , www.hotfrog.com.au , and www.ferret.com.au .

Of course, there are many other factors that can contribute to your small business website’s success too.

For more from Deborah Jackson, head to flyingsolo.com.au, Australia’s community for solo and micro business owners.