When you start up a business there is so much to consider - concerns about financing, building up your team and fine-tuning your products/services can take up all of your time. But to make all of this hard work count you will need customers. This is where marketing comes in, and a great way to start is with building your business website.

Unfortunately, many people underestimate the importance of their website - despite the fact that 97% of consumers actively research products and services online, over a third of small businesses in the UK don’t have a website. Of those who do, many are making critical mistakes when marketing online.

There are few things more frustrating on the web than business websites with poor user experience. We have all been there, struggling to find what you need on an outdated or badly organised website. As a user, the solution is simple - if the website is difficult to use, we will move on with the ease of a few clicks. With Google and other search engines, there’s no shortage of results and we just move on to the next result when we don’t like what we see.

There are countless mistakes to be made on business websites. From design to functionality, we have discussed these in our blog series. As well as potentially putting off customers, even small mistakes like colour clashing can make your site look unprofessional and harm your company’s reputation. The damage a bad site does can undo all the effort and money you’ve put into marketing your business and attracting prospects.

So what makes a great website?

First and foremost it needs to give you all the information you need in a simple, well-organised way. The secret is to keep things simple on your homepage with only a brief overview of the information the user needs to know - e.g. what your business does, service/products, pricing, guarantees/institutional messages, etc. Then you can layer more details and explanations in a well organised manner that is easy to navigate through. And finally, the focus should be on making the site a pleasure to look at with beautiful design, colours and high resolution images.

Website builders like bOnline are a great place to start, with professional designs that can be fully customised with the capability of editing and adding more features as you go along.