Small Business Website Design - How to Get Professional Results on a Shoestring Budget
Just because you are a small business with an even smaller website design budget, does not mean that you cannot have a professional looking website and presence on the web. All it means is you will have to do some of the work yourself instead of paying some design firm to do it for you. Amazingly enough, self designed pages from small business owners who did their research frequently end up being better and more focused than professionally designed pages. Consider the following suggestions when designing your own website.
Suggestion #1 - URL
First of all, your URL is very important and since it is the address to your website and what everyone will use to find your place on the web you need to put some careful consideration and thought into it. You don't want to come up with a URL that already exists as a .com and register it as a .tv. If you do this, you will just lose customers to the com. Likewise, you don't want to register a URL that has nothing to do with your website or content either. Be thoughtful and register a URL that pertains to your services or products, is as short as possible, and is spelled easily.
Suggestion #2 - Host
The next thing you must do is find a web host. Since you are on a shoestring budget you will be tempted to save money and go with a free host. Do not do this. Do anything you have to do to convince yourself that free is not always better because in this case it is not. Frequently the free sites don't get indexed by the search engines, they don't provide much space or bandwidth, and since they are free you can't do too much about it when the site is down or you went over your visitor limit. Instead, find an affordable host and there are many for under $10 per month, offer decent bandwidth, storage space, e-mail services, as well as other tools you need.
Suggestion #3 - Professional Templates
When it comes to designing your site, many hosts have tutorials and wizards that will help you do so. However, you will want your site to be as professional as possible so keep this in mind when choosing colors and the like. Also, use professional templates that you can buy or download for free online. They will give you the professional appearance you want for free.
Suggestion #4 - Text
When it comes to loading text on your website make sure you break it up into small chunks, use bold words, bullets, numbers, and anything else that you can think of to make it more readable. Avoid small fonts, light colors, or strange texts. Also, remember that the search engines use keywords in your text to return results, so be sure to include keywords in your text as well.
Michael Turner reveals step-by-step how you can increase search engine traffic in his free 7 part mini-series. Grab it now at http://www.powertraffictactics.com/
Related News:
4 Reasons Not To Design Your Own Website
Remember, your web site is the first thing that the online buyer will look at. Therefore, a bad quality website design would reflect on your business, giving negative perception on your products or services. The number of consumers buying online is growing rapidly and the last thing you want is to have your potential customers to shop on your competitors’ websites because they are better.
5 Things You Need To Know Before Hiring A Web Designer
Everyone loves saving money and some will even go beyond to do so. You are saving money only if you get at least the same quality web site design for less money. However, it would be considered very expensive if you are getting an insightful and error prone web site design for it. Finding a good web designer for your web site is the first step to the success of your online business.
From Good Web Design To Great Web Design
While it is relatively easy to poke fun at bad web site designs, it is a much harder task to distinguish good design from great design. A great web designer is more like a problem solver. Every web sites has its own set of functions to address one or more problems. Finding the root cause of the problem is the first step of great web site design concept. In the nutshell, web site design is a two steps process; finding the problem and then applying the right solution to address it.
10 Must See Scarilious Web sites
Hi Ghost lovers, Haunters and the haunted, are you looking for the good old scary times? Here are what you have been waiting for, The compilation of 10 of the most Scarilious Web sites. They are the best of the scariest and bloodiest web sites of them all that you'll be downright scared of your own shadow.
Sailors Build Boating Websites in Seconds with Free Website Platform Built by Sailors for Sailors
For sailors and Boating enthusiasts, it has always been a chore to keep good communication with fellow crew members to share info, pictures, and schedule events. Blue Water Media addresses this need with a newly created website platform called Telltale. Telltale allows sailors to create their own personalized boating website within minutes.
PR Leap
The Evolution of Web Designers
A growing number of web designers are learning how to code as their clients have more sophisticated requirement. This new trends will emerge to create a new breed of web designers, Web Application Designer?
Mac OS X Leopard-enhanced Freeway Web Design Software
Softpress announced that on October 26th 2007, it will release the Leopard-enabled Freeway 4.4 that is compatible with the Apple's Mac OS X Leopard’s new 'Quick Look' functionality, in which, you will be able to display an enlarged preview of a file without opening it.
Web Site Cookbook: Page Design and Navigation
Color, layout, and navigation are what usually come to mind when one thinks about web design. This paper explores some of those choices and present solutions that will help the user balance aesthetics with usability.
ZDNet
Is Man Better At Web Design?
According to a 2007 Web Design Survey by A List Apart, the average web designer is white male whose age is between 25 and 32 years old.
Event: Voices that Matter in Web Design
By David Dahlquist :: Filed Under » Events Heads up, San Franciscans—New Riders, Pearson Technology Group’s Web design imprint, is bringing it to the Bay by ...more
CMSWire, CA
First Ever Web Design Survey Results
Close to 33000 web professionals answered the survey's 37 questions, providing the first data ever collected on the business of web design and development ...more
Slashdot
Related Articles:
Website Design: Welcome The White Space
Individuals who are new to website development will often compartmentalize the web page and fill every available space with either text or graphics. After all, why shouldn?t you maximize the site design by including as much information as possible?
Chris Broadhurst Shares Tips And Tricks With Website Design Basics
Website Design Basics There are basic rules of good design to keep in mind. To start, I would recommend using Google & searching for 'website design basics' , 'website design tips' etc.
Simple Website Design Principles for Internet Marketing
An essential element of the success of any Internet Marketing campaign is the ability to not only generate traffic to your Website, but capturing the interest of the visitor once he's on your site. The are a number of techniques that the best Internet Marketing Strategies employ to ensure that their Website Design encourages a user to linger.
Affordable Website Design and Maintenance Services
Does your company need a new web site designed? Do you need website maintenance for an existing web site? A lot of companies throw big money on website design and get little in return.
SEO versus Website Design
Imagine a beauty contest final where its all come down to the two most stunning-looking contestants vying for the coveted title. Both are drop-dead gorgeous, but one has the glossier hair, the curvier figure and the more luscious lips of the two.
Design 9x Announces Limited Edition Website Design and Hosting for $549 Only
Design 9x, a leading Web Design Studio, Web Hosting and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) provider today announced Limited Edition Website Design and Hosting for $549 only.
Seven Website Design Tips to Make Your Site More Attractive
"How can I attract thousands of visitors to my site??, many people ask me this question. Well, driving high traffic to Website is very important, but what's even more important, is designing a website in that way which makes them stays longer.
Affordable Custom Website Design Solution Company
Making the right choice when it comes to the web design company that you will use can be very difficult. Thanks to the cheaper and more user friendly software programs that are now available just about anyone in the world can create a web site and have it live in a matter of days or perhaps even hours. That is not to say that this will be a good or even pretty good web site. Most likely this will be the most basic and low quality of all web sites and nothing that would attract and impress the visitors that you have. Sadly this is so common place anymore that people will take what they can get, hence the reason why so many new web sites are running around the web today. If you are looking for an affordable custom website design solution comp...