Before I start explaining to you about building websites for businesses, here is a nice little story:
In 2015, when the Internet was no longer some new thing, I arrived at a multi-participant business meeting.
The kind of networking meetings that every business owner has already been invited to several times in his life. At that meeting I met another business owner who came to stay and each of us told a little about himself. As usual in networking sessions.
The gentleman said that he is the owner of a printing house in the Tel Aviv area, he was proud of his large clients and the quality and speed of his work, and I told him that I have a website development house and that we specialize in e-commerce and complex and large websites.
Then the gentleman who was a bit old-fashioned in his views said – why is this needed. I’ve been in the business for 40 years and I’ve never had a website.
In response I answered him: You are right! Leave the internet, this thing has no future.
He laughed of course and realized his mistake, and from there the conversation turned to ‘how the internet can help him in his business’.
Today, 7 years later, this gentleman owns several e-commerce sites and offers prints of any image on any product. From a hat, shirt or towel at the end of a course, to the branding of business gifts.
Building websites for businesses correctly
There are many reasons why to build a website for a business.
First of all for the image reason. If someone hears about your business and wants to get more information, they will usually check the business website, so it is important that the website reflects the qualities of the business in a good and reliable way.
Image websites have a whole methodology of audience development that I will not elaborate on in this article, but it is mainly marketing.
Today, every process of purchasing a product or service begins with a search for information on the Internet, so the question I ask myself in every characterization process is How to present the website users with enough information to attract them to ask for more from this information.
On the other hand, the website should serve not only the users, but also the customer – the business.
The great wisdom in any website, and also in image websites, is to make the website stable enough so that the customer can enter content and operate the website independently,
But nevertheless – flexible enough to allow his business to grow in unexpected business directions.
Some of the image websites we developed at EOI have remained in the air for over 10 years, and have remained relevant throughout the entire period.
In e-commerce websites, the functionality of the website and the experience of using it are also important. This type of website should of course also serve the customer’s image,
But unlike image sites, on an e-commerce site the user not only consumes content, but actually manipulates it to make a purchase. That is why it is very important that the usability of the site be experiential and intuitive.
Methods to properly build a business website
There are several ways to build a website for a business, the guiding rules are: stability, survivability, ease of management, and usability.
The stability and survival of the site is a derivative of the assembly quality of all its parts. Especially in template websites and WordPress websites which are by nature modular websites,
The site consists of many modules or plugins written by different programmers and they make up the total site.
Since they were built by different programmers, they don’t always know how to talk to each other, and it often happens that there are conflicts between plugins that don’t know how to work well together. span>
In addition, the more plugins we use, the less stable the site will be, so there is a balance between the development cost of each feature and the centrality of its need.
For example, e-commerce systems, or a multilingual system is a system that is very expensive to write, and fortunately there are enough plugins and off-the-shelf solutions for these issues that shorten the work.
On the other hand, a floating shopping basket or a popup are things that it might have been better to write ourselves in order to save on dependencies in the system.
Each such plugin has a dependency on some additional factor, and we don’t always know if all these factors will continue to update their code, and thus a situation can arise where the website works today, but it is not certain that it will continue to work In half a year, or in two years.
The convenience of management comes from a correct and adequate characterization of the site’s management system.
Yes, even on WordPress sites it is necessary to think about the client, his technical capabilities, and how capable he is of managing the site on his own. The more flexibility we allow, the more complex the entire site management will be.
On template sites the issue is even more noticeable.
These templates are written to accommodate the widest range of options, so they are very flexible. And here is also their problem – this flexibility costs us the complexity of operation.
Those who are familiar with page builders know that it is very easy to insert a button into the content, but the menu that will open to determine all the parameters of the button – shape, purpose, width, color, hover response, click response… a lot options.
Some webmasters are fine with it, and some will be alarmed.
In addition, the more flexibility there is, the more room there is for mistakes, and then suddenly we see whole paragraphs written in pink and make the site look terrible.
Over the years, webmasters can change and you should also think about the next webmaster who will come and take the place of the current webmaster.
Here, too, we need to think of methods that will make it easier for the next site administrator to continue entering content that will look the same and we won’t start seeing different types of fonts on article pages.
A proper business website should be tailor-made for the customer.
Some clients are technical enough to manage a complex website, and some do need us to make this job easier for them and to be able to insert a button into the content without messing with its dozens of settings.
The usability of the site concerns the users and not the site administrators. The user of the website is his potential customer, and the technical capabilities of the average user should be taken into account and offered as a comfortable and clear browsing experience as possible.
On image sites we will ensure a correct content layout that will answer the main questions of the surfers, and lead them to action or contact. We will ensure simple and convenient navigation, a clear and easy-to-navigate category structure, correct division into content paragraphs, and more.
In catalog sites or e-commerce sites we will also make sure to prevent a simple and easy-to-operate search, we will offer filtering options if necessary to reduce the number of results and help surfers focus on what interests them , and we will take care of good and clear photos that will make it easier for surfers to understand what the product they are buying is.
In conclusion
Building websites for businesses is a field in which there is a wide range of considerations, but mainly we need to think about the ease of use of all factors:
The site manager needs a convenient and consistent management interface that will make it easier for him to set up new pages and enter or edit content,
While website users should experience comfortable and easy-to-find navigation.
EOI builds websites for the elite businesses in the economy and we will be happy to advise you about your website.
What else we do:
Building Virtual Stores – E-commerce sites must be built correctly, so that it will be profitable. We will help you understand how to build the store you have always dreamed of.
Rehabilitation Websites after a hack – even if you thought all was lost, we will help you restore the website after a hack.
