This guide was created to help small business owners perform their own website audit and/or enable them to understand what to look for when working with a web designer.

1. Web Design for the Small Business Owner
LUDELL JONES
Online Marketing
www.ludelljones.com ludelljones@gmail.com! 1

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Table of Contents
Introduction
Section1: Begin With Content
Essential Components of a Good Website
Website Necessities
Fantastic Homepages
Section 2: Calls to Action
Call to Action Types
Section 3: White Space
Good Design, Bad Design
Section 4: Consistency
Section 5: Architecture
Top 4 Mistakes in Architecture
Section 6: Keep it Fresh
Section 7: Testimonials
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7
Page 9
Page 10
Page 11
Page 12
Page 13
Page 14
Page 15
Page 16
Page 17

3. Introduction
Did you know that your website’s visitors form an impression
about you and your company within 3 seconds? That’s all- 3
seconds and they either dismiss you or are open to purchasing
your products and/or services! This is why the design aesthetics
of a website are so important.
Don’t let your designer tell you it’s not important
There are a lot of web development companies out there claiming that that they are
providing both web design and development when they serve you, but they really don’t
have a team member with a strong eye for design. There are also agencies that openly
focus more on development. These guys will tell you that the aesthetics just aren’t as
important as functionality.
WRONG. If visitors form an opinion about the professionalism and capabilities of your
company within 3 seconds, it is almost solely based on the attractiveness and
appropriateness of your site’s design.
It’s all about the packaging
It’s an age-old marketing concept that one can sell anything with the right packaging.
Your website’s design is the online packaging for your products and services. What you
offer might not be exciting at all, but the design of your website can get visitors excited
about it.
Your website should be treated just as you treat your brick and mortar location or your
office. It needs to be appealing. You want people to stick around and continue looking in
order to increase the chances that they might make a purchase.
You DO need more than stunning design
Beautiful design does the job of getting visitors to stick and check out your website a
little more, but you need optimized functionality and architecture as well. These
elements help visitors navigate the site easily and find the information they want and
need. The appearance will draw them in and the content will get them to stay and
explore…and hopefully buy!
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1. Begin With Content
Don’t put the cart before the horse!
Define content before thinking about how you want
your site to look. This includes service/product
descriptions, verbiage for the “About” page, a portfolio/
featured clients if applicable, testimonials, blog posts,
and homepage content.
Mind your word count
Don’t clutter your website with unnecessary
text or miss out on Google indexing. Follow
best practices by creating between 250 and
300 words of content for each page.
No keyword stuffing
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has changed. Creating
quality content is far more important than obsessing over
keyword usage. Use the right verbiage to represent what
each page is about. Think about the information that your
customers or clients need and provide it. (See Section 2)
What is Google indexing? Googlebot processes each of the pages it crawls in order to compile
a massive index of all the words it sees and their location on each page.
What is SEO? The process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s
“natural” or un-paid (“organic”) search results.

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6. Website Necessities
There are some basic guidelines regarding what pages and what
information should be included on a website. As a best practice,
make sure your site includes the items listed below to ensure that
your site visitors are getting the information they need.
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1. Optimized homepage
a. Either a sliding gallery or video
b. Call to Action (i.e. newsletter sign up or contact)- see Section 4
c. Your phone number- somewhere at the top
d. Social Media buttons
2. Service Pages
a. General service description (i.e. What does your company do?)
b. Full list of services
c. Individual service descriptions
3.Testimonials
a. Give your visitors quotes from past satisfied customers or clients
b. Include names, employers, and positions-anything that will make the testimonial
seem more credible
4. Contact Page
a. Phone number
b. Fax number (if applicable)
c. Email
d. Address
e. Contact form

7. Fantastic Homepages
www.leesferry.com
www.vizio.com
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8. www.boardsoffreedom.com
www.patisserie46.com
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9. 2. Calls to Action
Without them, you might as well not have a site
Calls to action guide visitors to do what you want
them to do. It should be featured on your
homepage very prominently. It’s worth taking
the time to think about what action would be
most valuable to your company. You might even
experiment featuring different calls to action to
see what works best. Avoid multiple calls to
action close together on one page- this will
confuse your visitors and make you appear too
sales oriented.
Call to Action (CTA) Rules
1. Throwing a CTA button on the page isn’t enough. You need to support the CTA with
convincing copy that describes the benefit that will come with responding to it. For
example, “Sign up for our newsletter to receive FREE tips and tricks on maintaining
your home as a new home owner.”
2. The CTA should be a contrasting color that draws the eye as soon as the page is
opened.
3. Prioritize your calls to action. Make sure they make sense. Sending someone to a page
to buy a product isn’t always the best choice.
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10. Call to Action Types
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A Call to Action...
1. Provides focus for your site
2. Provides a way to measure the success and effectiveness of
your site
3. Gives your visitors direction
Engagement- focuses on getting readers
to take simple actions to help promote
your content or share their thoughts
Drive to other content- simply drive the
reader to other things you've created
Lead nurturing- consciously move your
prospect along the sales funnel; architect
an experience that drives them toward
the sale
Sales- drive the reader toward making a
purchase
Sign up or lead capture- get more in-depth information about prospects such as email
address or lead generation information including more detailed contact information
Questions you should ask yourself...
Does this content have a call to action and is it clear and concise?
Is the call to action appropriate to the audience reading it?
To what page am I driving them and is that page optimized?

11. 3. White Space
Don’t be a pack rat
Your site should not be cluttered with images and
colors. A good web designer will use white space to
make your site look professional and elegant. Ditch
the excess and strip down to the necessities.
Give me room to breathe!!!
Think of white space on your site as giving your
visitors room to breathe. Give them what they need-don’t
overwhelm or overstimulate them.
Check out the homepage of
this beautiful site for
Adhara. It mixes beautiful
images and color with plenty
of white space.
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12. Good Design, Bad Design
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Compare the two websites below. One completely ignores the
value of white space and the other embraces it. Do you see the
difference it makes?

13. 4. Consistency
Support your branding
Make sure everything on your website is consistent
and supportive of your message and branding. Don’t
request use of colors or fonts that aren’t already being
used in other collateral for your business, including
your logo, business cards, and brochures.
Make sure you match!
Each page should be based on the same general
design. The same fonts, font size, colors, general
layout, and image quality should be present on each
and every page of your website. Visitors should not
feel like they’re on a completely different website
when they go from page to page.
Is the copy focused and relevant?
Make sure your messages are not all over the place
from page to page. Don’t contradict yourself and
check that what your company does and the value
you bring is clear all across the board.
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5. Architecture
Simplify
Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Stick with the standard
structure and give your audience a homepage menu that
they understand. Give pages names people will recognize
and prioritize the order so the viewer knows which pages
are most important.
Navigation
Don’t make visitors work too hard to get where they
need to go. Get them clicking 3 times or less before
they arrive on the page where they want to be.
Providing a Site Map, with a link in the footer menu,
might help visitors navigate a site with a lot of pages.
Focusing on creating good site architecture helps to...
1. Assure visitors they are in the right place
2. Make it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for
3. Lead visitors to respond to a call to action
4. Make your company look more credible with a logically organized site

15. Top 4 Mistakes in Architecture
Here are the top 4 site architecture mistakes you should avoid. Does
your site integrate any of these bad practices?
Making up menu titles instead of going with the classics that
everyone already recognizes
Featuring anything that rotates on its own without giving the visitor
the option to control it themselves
Lack of organization in general; not grouping like categories and
pages together
Invisible navigation options; not using buttons and text that makes
links highly visible
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6. Keep It Fresh
Regular Updates Are Key
Once you’ve got your site up and you’ve made sure that it
meets all of the guidelines in this guide, the work isn’t over!
The content featured on your site needs to stay fresh and, in
some cases, you’ll need to create new content to keep
people coming back. From event listings to promotions and
new blog posts to the date in footer way at the bottom of
the page, you’re content must feel current or it will make
your company look less credible. Do you really want your
site visitors wondering if you’re still in business?
Ways to Keep Your Site Updated
1.Make sure you’re following an editorial calendar for your blog. Update at least once a
week. If this isn’t possible, you shouldn’t have a blog on your site!
2. If you have a homepage slider, change the photos regularly.
3.Feature current promotions or sales focuses on the homepage or within product pages.
4. Each year, perform a self audit, going through each page of the site and checking that
there are no broken links and updating the year in your footer.
5. Integrate video. Start by having a general video about your business created and put it
on the homepage.
6. Link only to social media accounts on which you are active. If you haven’t posted
anything since February 2013, don’t send people there!

17. 7. Testimonials
Prove it
Your own claims about your services or
products are made so much more powerful and
validated when your customers back you up.
Make asking customers or clients for their
testimony a regular part of your service
process. Use their name and even include a
picture if possible. We’re built to trust human
faces.
A good testimonial page will include the testimony giver’s name and photo and it might
even integrate video testimonials.
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18. At Ludell Jones, we work with you to create a stunning website that meets
your company’s goals and vision while integrating best practices, which
will help your company be more effective online. Contact us at
(707)331-4167 or ludelljones@gmail.com today for a FREE 15 minute
consultation.
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