Website Design Essentials for Small Businesses on a Budget

As a small business owner, you’ve probably heard the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Well, I hate to break it to you, but visitors will absolutely judge your business by the look and feel of its website.

If you’re just starting out, you know how important it is to represent your brand well. And if you’re here, you probably already know that your website is key to that—but hiring a designer or an agency to give it that glossy look and feel might not be in the budget just yet.

The good news? With knowledge of a few website essentials, you can create a professional site without breaking the bank.

In this article, we’re going to show you five budget-friendly website design essentials to get your website looking professional without having to empty your savings.

Let’s get into it.

1. High-Quality Visuals

Just because you don’t have an expensive, cutting-edge device to take photos of your products or services doesn’t mean they should suffer for it. Your products are good, but you have to showcase them in the best light possible. Bad camera quality and poor lighting can not only give a poor representation of your products and discourage customers, but also give your website a poor look and feel, making it look disorganised and unprofessional.

To prevent this, an affordable (and sometimes free) option is to download high-quality pictures from stock photo sites like Unsplash or Pexels. This way, you can keep your products looking fresh and organised on your website without the stress of hiring a team of photographers and organising a photoshoot.

2. SEO-Friendly Content

Many businesses these days pay enormous amounts of money for sponsored ads to stay relevant and at the top of search engines. As a small business looking to cut its coat according to its size, paying for ads may not be in the budget at the moment; however, that doesn’t mean you should give up on staying relevant on search engines. One way to do this is by optimising your content for search engines. This way, not only can your content rank organically without much hassle, but it’s also deemed more relevant and trustworthy by users because it’s organic.

To optimise your website for search engines, use keywords that are relevant to search queries. To find keywords that are relevant to your products and niche, you can use free tools like Google Keyword Planner and Keyword Tool. These sites can help you generate relevant keywords to optimise your content and increase its visibility on search engines.

To learn more about search engine optimization, click here to read our article about SEO.

3. Clear Branding

Clear branding (or lack of it) can make or mar your website as a business owner. When visitors or potential customers visit your website, it’s important to maintain a consistent pattern of logos, colour schemes, fonts, and other visual assets. These elements tie your website together and make it look organised.

While professional branding may cost you about £500 to £15,000, there are simple and effective tools like Canva and Photoshop that allow you to create brand assets for free or with a small subscription fee. This way, you can save yourself the expense of hiring professional designers; you can still get the job done while spending next to nothing.

4. Install SSL Certificates

If you’re a small business and one of your goals is for visitors to transact on your website, it is important to get an SSL certificate. SSL certificates represent the security of your data, and they prevent your and your customers’ precious information from getting hacked when transactions are made on your website. Examples of such data include credit card information and other private details of your customers.

Now, there are ways to get an SSL certificate without necessarily breaking a sweat. Most host providers include a free SSL certificate in their hosting plans that you can easily incorporate into your website as part of your package. To enable it, log into your hosting control panel, look for an option like “Security” or “SSL certificates,” and activate the free SSL.

If you have trouble doing that, you can also use Let’s Encrypt, a free SSL provider that offers certificates for any website. More often than not, hosting providers already have Let’s Encrypt in their control panel; just go to your hosting dashboard and turn it on.

5. Analytics

Analytics tools help you analyse and track data on where your visitors live and the demographics of people who visit your website. They are great for figuring out who your main clients are and how to better cater to them.

Instead of paying hundreds per month for an analytics platform, you can cut costs by using Google Analytics, which covers all the basics and is ideal for a small business budget. Another option is Google Tag Manager, which is also a free and efficient analytics tool. The best part is, you can use these tools without modifying your website’s code. Isn’t that amazing?

Conclusion

Creating a professional, efficient website doesn’t have to drain your pockets, at least not completely. As a small business owner, implementing these strategies on your website can be the springboard you need to put your competitors far behind you. Every small business deserves an even playing field, and thankfully, these tools and resources are available to help you get your website rolling without having to empty your savings.

If you employ any or all of these tactics, not only will you save a lot of money, but you’ll also improve your website’s overall look and optimise it for customers.