Web Design Services for Small Business

If you own a small business, you need a website. At Pine Digital Design we are dedicated to web design services for small business owners just like you!

Your website is the first glimpse visitors and potential customers or clients will have of your business services or products.

Your website is your main salesperson at this point! And it can sell for you 24/7 if it’s set up right.

You want your first impression to load fast, look good, be clear, and direct the site visitor to take your desired action - i.e. click to learn more, shop now, schedule an appointment, download something, or contact your business, all without having to scroll down the page!

Small businesses surveyed said the biggest chunk of their marketing budget in 2020 was going towards creating and/or improving their website. 

And if you think that you don’t need a website because you have a Facebook page, think again. Who owns the data on Facebook? Facebook does. Who has all the contact information on potential customers? Facebook does. Who controls what people see on Facebook? Facebook does. 

What happens if Facebook goes away? What happens if the Facebook algorithm decides your company page needs to be shut down? What happens if your target audience isn’t on Facebook?

Social media can be great - just use it in conjunction with your website, not instead of it.

When you have your own small business website, you control everything. Boom!

We are web designers for small business, and getting results for you is our sole focus. Results can originate from many areas, but first you need a website that tells your story and explains why your visitors should choose you.
 

You begin your story with your branding. More than just a logo, branding includes your business message, based on the values and goals of your small business. Branding is how your customer views and perceives your business; so it’s important.

It also includes colors - what’s your color palette? Do you even have one? Your website color palette should match and expand on your logo colors. Colors can be tricky. You need to make sure you’re choosing colors in the same or a complementary color family.

Branding and website colors can portray mood, style, emotion, personality and more:

If your small business is a dental office, what message are you sending if your brand colors are black and bright red? Dark, scary, maybe even (eek!) blood comes to mind. If I’m a potential patient, I’d be scrolling down fast to find another clinic.

On the other hand, if your brand colors were comprised of soothing pastel shades of green, blue, white, and rose - you’d feel a LOT better about contacting that clinic, right?

Choose your colors wisely, my friend. Contact us to help you with your small business branding and colors!

Many people don’t realize this, but small business website design is different from website development. And just as, if not more, important.

Your website design is all about how the viewer interacts with your website, and how it looks. You want it to be as user-friendly as possible, and give the viewer a pleasant visual and tactile experience. This is where UX and UI come into play.

User Experience (UX) is the feel of a website or product; how a user - someone who is viewing your website or product - interacts with your website and how the website actually functions. Once the user experience has been determined, you can move on to UI.

User Interface (UI) is the look of a website or product. UI design focuses on how fonts, colors, and images of a design connect to the product’s brand.

The best website design companies for small business know and appreciate the differences between UX and UI design, and educate their clients so they understand too.

Web design services for small business almost always include website design and website development. Once you’ve nailed down the UX and UI, it’s time to actually build the website.

A variety of tools can be used to create the structure of the website. The specific tool is determined by how much your small business will be involved in updating and maintaining the website. Web designers can build your site on a platform you are familiar with, or one that is easy to use without a lot of HTML, CSS, or JavaScript coding knowledge. Some common platforms include Wix, Squarespace, WordPress, Joomla, Webflow and Shopify.

Or, a small business can choose to be completely hands-off and let the developer choose the best platform for the site. The developer will be responsible for all the updating, maintenance and security of the website.

Your website content is what guides your user through the UX. Content includes text (copy), images, audio and video.

Each page or section of your website contains content that explains what problem your small business is solving, what your services or products are, who you are - usually in your "About Us" page, why someone should buy from you, and how to contact you.

Content, and its layout, can make or break your small business website. The most beautiful website in the world will be useless if the text is boring, confusing, all bunched together, or difficult to read.

Copy, images, audio and video all contribute to how effective your website content is and whether or not someone viewing your website will buy from you.

Did the Queen Latifah "control" gif above make you smile? Website videos and animations make the user experience better and add whimsy and dynamic content to an otherwise static, boring website.

Need more proof? Let's look at some stats on why you should use video in your small business website and marketing:

If you don’t use video in your small business website marketing, you’re going to be left behind.

Animations can make a website more interesting and are used in many creative ways to bring attention to certain parts of a website.

Animations include things like buttons changing color while hovering over them, icons that rotate, text or images that slide in from the side of the page as you scroll down, text or images that flip over as you’re viewing them, and much, much more.

Surprisingly, in the Small Business Marketing Trends image above, small businesses planned to spend very little on SEO (search engine optimization) in 2020.

This is a mistake. SEO, when done correctly, is a very powerful and budget-friendly way to get traffic (customers and potential customers) to your small business website. It’s one way to beat your competition too!

SEO optimizes your website and specific website pages for terms or keywords that relate to your small business. For example, if your small business is a Hawaiian restaurant, some of the terms or keywords you want on your website are “Hawaiian food,” “best place for Hawaiian food in Portland,” and “Hawaiian restaurants near me.”

Web design services for small business should include SEO. If you don’t have a ton of money to spend on advertising, then SEO should become your new best friend. 

You can see how important it is for a small business to have a good website.  A website will help your business attract customers or clients, tell your story, and increase your revenue if it's set up the right way.