If you want to be taken seriously, especially in the online realm, your website needs to have a professional look and feel. A professional-looking website will give you credibility and legitimacy, and make your visitor feel more confident about you, your products, and your services.
Whether or not you have a designer or go the DIY route, you need to make sure you add the following to make your website reflect the professionalism of your business.
1. Have a dedicated domain for your website and email.
First of all, have a domain name that reflects your business name. For example, my company is ClientAbundance.com and my domain name is http://www.clientabundance.com. If you can’t register your company name, seriously consider changing it or making it work so you can register it. For example, if your company is “Your Life, Only Better” but [http://www.yourlifeonlybetter.com] taken, you will avoid any future conflicts if you change your company name now.
You can check availability and register domains at http://www.powerpipe.com or http://www.godaddy.com for as little as $6.95 per year.
With domain registration comes a dedicated email address that you can set up to work with your current email software, like Outlook. For example, one of my email addresses is [email protected]. It looks much more professional than [email protected]. Nothing looks less professional than a Yahoo or Hotmail email address as your business email.
2. Have a really good logo.
This is important because it helps increase your credibility and makes you appear more real in the online world. It will also make you feel more legitimate to have a tangible object attached to your business.
http://www.LogoYes.com is a DIY site and it’s cheap. If you can spend a little more, hire a designer to create it for you. A good source is http://www.mylogo.com, where you can get a custom logo for $299. However, if you’re new to business, don’t spend a ton of money here, as you’ll likely go through a few transitions before settling on a design and message that feels unique to you.
3. Make your contact information prominent and include a physical location.
People want to know that they can contact you if they need to and they don’t want to have to search for this information, so don’t hide it. Include your email, phone number, and physical location at the bottom of each page, and also include an email address link at the top of each page (incorporating it into your logo can work well).
By law, any email marketing you do (electronic postings or other transmissions) must have a physical address displayed within it. Don’t use your home address or a post office box if you can avoid it. Rent a mailbox at your local UPS store for about $12 a month and use “Suite” instead of PO Box.
4. KISS: Keep it just sophisticated.
By this I mean, keep your site clean and elegant. No flashing stuff, no annoying animated graphics please. Give people the information they’re looking for with simple navigation and easy-to-read text.
5. Have a signup form for your free offer.
Whether you have this on your site or not, it really doesn’t make it look any more or less professional, BUT, and this is a big BUT, you need to capture people when they visit your site if you want to be able to SHOW THEM (via your ezine or other free offer) that you are a professional and that you know what you are doing. Nothing will get your visitors to know you and learn to like and trust you faster than continuing to “talk” to them.
Create a simple subscription script and add it ‘in the top half of the page’ on your website. Most hosting companies have these scripts available to you, or you can search online for a free script to insert the code into your website.
Are there sites you frequently visit, just to see what that person or company is doing? Well, the same goes for your website. If your visitors like your site, they will come back again and again to see what YOU are doing. And isn’t that what you want?
Copyright 2005 Alicia Forest
