There are about 1.5 billion websites on the internet right now. Your company website will be vying for attention against every one of these. As such, it needs to stand out.
Think you’re vying for the attention of your target audience only against direct competitors? This is far from true. But why?
Your target audience has other interests. They can become distracted by their social media accounts, email, and that video of a cute puppy. To capture and keep their interests, your website needs to be the best version of itself.
A way to make this task easier is to use website design resources. Continue reading to learn about nine resources you should be bookmarking right now.
The Basics of Building A Small Business Website
Building a small business website goes far beyond putting together something appealing. In the days of internet infancy, this worked. Not so much anymore.
We aren’t going to dive into each of these sections in depth. But, the most basic website design for small business owners will boil down into four categories.
Graphic Design Elements
Creating an appealing website might not be the only thing you need to do, but it’s still pretty important. You want to keep your design simple and your website free of clutter. You’ll also want to ensure the website is designed to be intuitive.
This is the part of building your website we’ll be most discussing today. There are plenty of website design resources that can make your task easier.
Site Structure
Your site structure is how website pages relate to each other. It has a lot to do with how search engines will crawl your website and rank your different web pages.
To have the best ranking, your site structure needs to be as simple and intuitive as your design. Remember to place the most important pages closest to your homepage.
The homepage will be the base page for crawling and consumer use. The further from the home page, the lower it will rank in search engines.
Incorporating Good SEO
Once you’ve tackled the basic design elements of your website, you need to incorporate good SEO. This is a marketing tactic that allows your website to do well in the search engines.
Without SEO, your website won’t be bringing in any organic traffic. Organic traffic is one of the primary ways you can build upon your current customer base. In terms of your website, SEO will mostly be done through copywriting.
If you aren’t great at marketing, you can always outsource your website’s SEO. Many digital marketing companies offer affordable SEO packages that can make your life easier.
Upkeep
Once you’ve initially finished building your website, the job isn’t over. Far from it, actually. Your website will require consistent upkeep to remain working and relevant to your target audience.
Upkeep includes checking graphics and links to ensure they’re still working. You’ll want to build backlinks to direct more people to your website. You will also want to continually optimize your website for page loading times and Google algorithm updates.
9 Website Design Resources You Need to Know About
Website design resources can make your project much simpler. By having access to resources, business owners won’t need to search countless web pages for the information they need. The nine website design resources below should be bookmarked for easy access.
1. Font Squirrel
This website provides high-quality fonts. They’re entirely free to use on either the internet or in print. Due to its wide applications, this resource can be used to find fonts for projects beyond your website design.
2. Tutsplus
If you’re confused about a certain aspect of your website’s design, this is the place to go. The website holds a wealth of information aimed at web developers and website designers.
You can find articles on web development, WordPress, and mobile development. You can also learn the basics of HTML and CSS here.
3. Creative Overflow
As the name suggests, this website has an overflow of creative resources. All the content on the website is free to use and of the highest graphic quality. You can find UI kits, PSDs, fonts, icons, WordPress freebies, and HTML templates.
4. Adaptive Backgrounds
This is a really neat resource that can be a huge help if you’re basing your website around an image like your business logo. You can extract and copy the primary colors in your images to use them on your website or smaller design elements.
5. Site Inspire
No ideas for how you want to design your website? This website offers inspiration so you can get the creative juices flowing.
6. Dribbble
This invaluable resource lets you learn from other web designers. Specifically, the information is about common graphic design mistakes and how you can fix them. It’s highly suggested you scan their most popular content before designing your business website.
7. Unsplash
All websites need high-quality images that match the provided written content. Unsplash is a great stock photography resource. They have thousands of royalty-free stock images you can use, with new ones added daily.
8. Pixabay
This is another stock photography website. Between Unsplash and Pixabay, you should always be able to find the perfect images for your on-page content, articles, and blog posts.
9. Ico Moon
If you need a high-quality icon, this is the best of the possible website design resources. There is an icon generator tool that can be used to generate more than four thousand possible vector icons. Best of all, it’s free.
Reach Out
Do you use any of the nine website design resources listed above? Do you have other website design resources you think are a must-know for business owners?
Let us know in the comments below. We’d love to hear from you.