The document provides tips and best practices for creating an effective small business website. It emphasizes that a good website should clearly identify what the business does through a tagline and consistent design, provide easy navigation and organization of information, and include important elements like contact details and ways to collect user data. The document also stresses the importance of following conventions, using images and chunking content to improve readability, and optimizing the site for search engines and different devices through responsive design. It notes both the benefits of building a site independently using common platforms, and of hiring a professional for their expertise.

2. More content was createdin the last
two years than the previous 5,000 years
of humanity.

3. 82% of searcherswilluse
their phone to help them
make adecisionabout an
in-store purchase.

4. Powerful Moments
There is more computing power used to do a single Google search thanall existing
NASA computers used to land on the moon in 1969.

5. Infinite Noise
The average American had access to more thanten connected devices in
their household. Eachdevice can create and filter noise.
We've gone from being exposed to 500 ads a day back in the1970's to as many as
5,000 a day today.

6. We cannot reach consumers with mass media if it is
filtered by algorithms on devices

7. 30% of Internet users use
ad blocking software.

9. Your Websiteis a Billboard
Going by at 60 MPH!

10. What Defines
A Good
Small Business
Web Site?

11. What does my website
need to do in order for
it to be successful?

12. Keep the noise
down
to a
dull roar!!

13. A GoodWeb Site Has:
A tagline that clearly identifies what you do
Consistent design and navigation onall pages
Clearhierarchy of information
Footer links at the bottom of everypage
Keywords that identify your business
Easy-to-find contact information
A means to gatheruserdata

15. ADA Compliant
Does your website provide equal
accessfor individualswith a
disability?

16. Useful
Does your website dosomething
people need done?

17. Learnable
Can people figure out how to use
your website?

18. Effective
Does your website get the job done?

19. Efficient
Does it do it in a reasonableamount
of time andeffort?

20. Desirable
Do people want it?

21. Conventions are
our friends!

22. Web Site Conventions
 They are useful. Conventions onlybecome conventions if they work.
 Designers are reluctant to use conventions, they like to reinvent the
wheel.
 Innovate when you KNOW you have a better idea, use conventions
when you don’t.

23. Web Site Convention
Examples
 Navigation appearing along the top or running down the left side of
the page
 Logo located in the upper left corner
 Hyperlinks are underlined

24. Things to Avoid
 Splash or Intro Pages
 Slow loading pages
 Large blocks of text on the main site pages
 White text on color background
 Too much Flash and Music
 Incomplete or outdated pages

26. Understanding who our target audienceis and where
they spend their time, you can build an organic
presence by focusing on content that speaksto their
needs and wants.

27. Information Architecture
 Create Usable Navigation System
 Easytolearn
 Consistentthroughoutthe site
 Minimum numberofclickstodestination
 What is the mission orpurpose of the site
 Who are the intended audiences
 Determinethe organizational structure
 Hierarchyofinformation
 Narrowanddeep orbroadandshallow
 Create a site map or blueprint of the site

28. 3 Important Concepts Require Your
Attention
 What the audiencewants from you
 What you want to say
 How you arrange the content to best meet your audience’s
needs

29. Break up pages into clearlydefinedareas

30. Makeit obvious what
is clickable

31. Important Considerations
 A clear, concise mission, vision, and values statement.
 Include photographs to add visualmeaning to the site.
 All photos should be captioned to increase comprehension &
SEO.

32. Important Considerations
 FAQ’s- improves users understanding of the information presented
and reduces demand on your staff.
 Site Map—Helps users navigate and search your site.
 Page Footers offer the user a set of linksto other pages in addition to
essential data about the site.

33. Site Marketing
Your Web site should be anintegral part of allmarketing campaigns
and corporate communications programs, and the URL for the site
should appear on every piece of correspondence and marketing
collateral.

35. Site Navigation
 Gives us something to hold on to
 It tells us what’s inside
 It instructs us how to use the site
 Consistent Navigation allows users to adapt easily and predict with
confidence the location of information

36. Landing Pages
Landing pages, or “lead-capture pages,”
are used to convert visitors into leads
by completing a transactionor by collecting contact information from them via
a
Call-To-Action.

37. Landing Page Elements
• A strong Call-To-Action
• A brief description of the offer that clearly emphasizes its value.
• At leastone supporting image.
• Supporting elements such astestimonials.
• Form to capture visitors' information.

39. Call-To-Action (CTA)
• Your CTA is the action you want your
website visitor to take.
• It doesn't matter if your landing page objective is increasing sales,
generating email leads or developing customer relationships, we all want
more conversions!

41. Omit Needless Words
 Reduces noise level of the page
 Makes useful content more prominent
 Makes pages shorter, reduces scrolling

42. Kill the HappyTalk
 Happy talkislike small talk,visitors to your site are not
interested.
 Contains no useful information

43. Chunk It
 FewWebusersspendtimereadinglongpassagesoftexton-screen
 Chunkingcanhelporganizeandpresentinformationina uniform
format
 Concisechunksofinformationare bettersuitedtothecomputerscreen.
Longpagestendtodisorientreaders andrequireuserstoscrolllong
distances

44. Kneel Before Google
 Your content should be “Search Engine Friendly” Zero-Click
Searches
 Content should contain keywords that best describe your
products and/or services
 Use hyperlinks within your content to linkto other pages on
your site

45. Stock Photography
 Google Images is NOT a source of photos for your web site
 Royalty Free:Pay fee for variety of usage
 Rights Managed: Pay fee for very specific, one-time usage.
 ShutterStock, AdobeStock, iStock offer affordable plans for
Royalty Free Stock Images.

48. Responsive Design
A Single Web Site That Works Effectively on Both
Desktop Computers and Mobile Devices.

49. Design is Devine
The design of your site should offer relief to the eye by strikinga
balance between text and graphic elements.

50. Success Criteria
 Top of Mind Awareness within Marketplace
 Content is relevant, informative, and addresses the needs of the visitor
 Information is easy to find and read
 Increase unique visitor traffic to site
 Reducedemand on staff when handling inquiries
 Capture userdata for future marketing
 Connectedness–link to other Webproperties
 More product inquiries—MORE BUSINESS!

52. Design Your Own Site
 WordPress, Wix, Squarespace and Shopify are CMS products
that use templates so you can build your own WebSite and
manage the content.
 CMS allows you to add/edit and delete pages from your site

53. Benefits of DIY Web Sites
 Saves you money
 Template driven, plug-insavailableto add functionality
 Provides content management system (CMS) that archives
content and allows you to easily upload new content to the site.
 Manage site content viaa Web browser

54. Benefits of Hiring a Pro
 Saves you time, allows you to focus on core capabilities
 A professional will know how to structure the site to make it
visitor friendly and design the site to make the most of web
technology
 Customized approach to meet your specificneeds
 Employ SEO strategies

56. • Used by 1.0%of all the websites
• Basic website builder for free
• Simple drag and drop interface
• 500+pre-madetemplates
• Nearly200+apps available
• Offers e-Commercewith paid plans
• Used by 32.5%of all websites
• Software is available for free
• Visual editor to write content
• 1,000sof freeand paid themes
• 55,000+freeplugins available
• Powers over 42%of all e-Commercesites

57. Your Websiteis a Billboard
Going by at 60 MPH!

58. VGL.COM
Presentationavailable:
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