It's easy for a small business web site to fail -- but do these two things and yours won't

You should look for a web site designer for small business -- one who specializes -- if you operate a medium sized business. He will appreciate your need for a site that delivers information and appeals to the visitor.

Your customers will know your small business web site is efficient if it immediately does two things for a visitor. For one thing, it communicates that your business is professional and works well -- because the site is both. Second, it quickly helps the visitor to locate what he wants -- because the layout and navigation is clear and simple to use.

Big companies with huge budgets for the Internet and other advertising can get web sites that achieve both these things by using highly paid design teams and consultants working out of offices in the high rise office blocks of the city. Of course a small business has less money and must do some basic thinking about design itself.

Here's two things to negotiate with the less expensive web designer you will use.

1. Have you noticed those little 'moving pictures' that display in some Internet advertisements, and occasionally take up all the home page of a site? Look stunning, don't they! This is flash. But before you rush out to code up some flash you should understand the search engines won't be able to read these amazing displays. Search engines use the words on your site and the links coming into it, to know what is the focus of your site. So when you really must use flash make very sure you have lots of words about your company and your market sector on your prominent pages. Also, ask your designer to make any flash movies little. Flash usually uses large amounts of bandwidth and this will slow down your site. People get irritated over pages that are slow to load. So be hesitant to use these movies.

2. Your second discussion point is similar. Graphics always make a page look great. They bring color and if you know how to use them, they will direct the visitor's eye to the areas you want him to see quickly. But graphics can also be enormous, and with too many large ones you will get a slow-loading page. Tell the designer to make sure his pictures use only a little bandwidth.

So, there's two things you can do to make your small business site represent you appropriately. Make a note and do something about them and your site's effectiveness will match with larger businesses and their expensive web sites.

Article Source: http://www.SponsorDirectory.com/Free-Content

Len McGrane is a specialist web site designer for small business. He has written extensively for small business web site owners, helping them build web sites that convert visitors to buyers and loyal customers.

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