Understanding the ins and outs of web design for small businesses can be complicated.

As the internet (and search engines) rapidly grow, it’s harder than ever to keep your business’s website up to speed. Techniques evolve and change every few years, so even a relatively “new” site may be moving towards outdated.

Fortunately, there are things you can do to attract customers that are still proven. And if you design your website properly, it will generate leads for your business for years to come.

Here are 8 tips for smooth website design to bolster its performance and conversion abilities.

1. Minimal Is the Way to Go

There are many old trends and bad habits websites adopt or neglect to fix as time goes on. One of them is having a jam-packed website full of unorganized content.

While this was pretty much the norm a decade ago, it isn’t anymore. In fact, if your website is cluttered and not well organized, you will have a very hard time getting people to stick around.

(We’ll talk about all the reasons that matters later.)

First and foremost, choose a slick-looking design that’s easy on the eyes. It should brand-appropriate, but try to eliminate the bells and whistles.

One good rule of thumb is to look at every element of your website/pages and ask: What is this element doing for me and my website?

That degree of intentionality can go a long way towards upping conversions or generating leads for your business.

2. Focus on SEO

There’s a reason so many intelligent companies (especially startups) are investing lots of money into ranking on search engines. Website trends come and go, but search engine optimization is both a short-term and long-term strategy that generates business for your website.

When building your site, make sure it’s easy for engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing to pick up. Google actually lays out their SEO basics on their website. So you really have no excuse but to abide by them or hire someone to do the work for you.

3. Build a Website That Supports Good Content

Today, businesses and online platforms have to tell a story. hey also need a social media presence. The best way to kill two birds with one stone when building your website is to make sure it’s suited for the type of content you create (or plan to).

For some companies, this might be a standard blog post. If this is the case, make sure your site is easy to read.

If you host a podcast or create videos for YouTube, be sure your website can support this type of bandwidth. Also, make sure the videos embed properly. Rest assured, people won’t click on them if your website looks like a mess.

4. Increase Page Speed

You don’t have much time to capture your audience’s attention. Especially when it comes to new people who don’t know what you do.

In short, your pages need to load quickly. Long load times, laggy screens, or websites that take up tons of data are not popular in 2021. (This is yet another reason why a minimalist setup is a good idea.)

When pages don’t load quickly, Google sees the bounce rate on your website is high. Even if you are creating quality content, this will mean your pages are less likely to rank high.

Remove unnecessary plugins and anything slowing your site down. Do a speed test to get an idea how fast your site is loading now.

5. Give Clear Calls to Action

Good calls to action drive your viewers to engage in a specific behavior. This could mean subscribing to your email list, signing up for a trial, or buying a product.

To increase your conversion rate in any of these areas, your calls to action should be clear and concise. Make sure people know what you’re asking them to do. And ask them in a way that explains why they’ll benefit.

Your social media accounts, phone number(s), email, and should all be on display and easy to find. It’s not uncommon for people to go to your website solely looking for this information. Make it readily available.

6. Make It Mobile-Friendly

Not to be blunt, but if your website doesn’t load well or displays oddly on smartphones, you’re in trouble.

Google and other search engines won’t rank your website high at all. And you’re probably losing a ton of potential traffic and/or sales due to people not wanting to bother with your website.

The truth is, the majority of people find websites on their smartphones. Desktop searches account for less than 50 percent nowadays, and that trend is only going to continue.

7. Connect With Google Search Console

Google really makes an effort to help you rank high on their website. This is because it’s a win-win if your website offers value. You rank high and get new customers/leads, and they get to provide valuable information to their searchers.

If you aren’t already linked to Google Search Console, get your website set up with it today. As you craft your small business website design plan, use what Google says about your website to inform your decisions.

8. Fix and Delete Dead Pages and Broken Links

Broken links and low-value pages don’t have a place on the modern website. Of the business website design tips mentioned, this is probably the simplest to employ. Delete these pages or merge them with higher-value content.

Search engines also dislike pages that aren’t clear or contain no information. If too many of your pages are like this, it will negatively affect even your best content.