People should be able to easily find what they're looking for on your website. Additionally, you must make sure that people with disabilities can get to it. 

1. Overview 

When designing a website, usability is very important. Online users should be able to quickly and easily find the information they need on your website. 
Additionally, you should think about copyright problems when making your website. It is your responsibility to follow the Equality Act 2010. 
While you can create your own website, you might want to hire a web designer or digital business instead. 

2. Planning a website

With a website, you can: 
• raise recognition of your brand; 
• cut costs; 
• sell goods, and 
• provide better customer service. 
Accessible and simple websites are good for all companies. Online customers who can easily use your website are more likely to buy from you and come back to your site again in the future. 
Audience and content - 
Consider the kind of material you need and how it should be offered. Consider what people will want when they visit your website and what will make them want to come back. 
Globally, you have to put some information on your website.  every business must clearly disclose: 
• the business registration number 
• the location of its registration 
• the address of its listed office 
If your company is being wound up, this must also be displayed on all of your websites. 
Planning methods -
We recommend making a site map. This displays the organization of your website, including the pages' suggested content, access, and style. 
Utilize wireframes to plan out your websites. Each page's menu and content blocks will be shown in labeled boxes on the mockup. 
To show the first design to buyers or coworkers, wireframes can be changed easily. 

3. Web design: Technical Problems

While creating your website, you should think about several technology problems. 
Problems with browsers 
You will have to make web pages that function well on a wide range of computers. We recommend that you check your websites with as many tools as you can to make sure they look good. Additionally, you should make sure that your websites work with older browser versions, since some of your visitors may not have changed their software. 
Resolutions for screens 
Although your website may be designed for a higher resolution than 1024 x 768 pixels, some screens with smaller sizes might not be able to show all of the information. 
Additionally, you should think about how your website will look on mobile devices like smartphones, netbooks, and tablet computers. For instance, you should try to cut down on the number of steps needed to make a buy and the amount of vertical scrolling that is needed and required. 
Fast downloads 
Although some people have fast internet, the speed of your connection should also affect how you create your website. 
The web page will load more slowly if it has a lot of pictures or complex media like cartoons or videos. This means people can go to a different site. In addition, it might hurt your search engine score. 
Information Technology 
Online technologies can stop people from seeing your site or make it harder for search engines to analyze it. This group of technologies includes 
HTML frames, 
JavaScript, 
Flash, and 
AJAX. 
Anytime you use any of these technologies, you should think about how they might affect the usefulness and accessibility of your website. 

4. Accessibility problems with web design 

Using unfair treatment toward a disabled person is against the law according to the Equality Act globally. With this in mind, you must make your website accessible to disabled people by using technology like screen readers. 
Guidelines for accessibility -
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has made some officially recognized rules. These rules are split into three groups, which you can see below: 
• priority 1: websites must follow these rules or some users won't be able to view them 
• priority 2: websites must follow the rules or trouble will arise for some people trying to visit the site 
• priority 3: websites must follow this rule or else some users will have trouble getting to the site. 
Reasonable modifications -
When a disabled person is significantly harmed by your business, you must make "reasonable adjustments." Because of this, a website owner must: 
• change a practice, policy, or procedure that makes it impossible or unreasonably difficult for handicapped people to use the service; for example, using very small text that makes it harder for people with vision problems to read
• Offering features that would allow or make it easier for disabled individuals to use the service for example, giving users who can't use a computer an alternative point-and-click interface shall be provided. 
Accessible website design 
Your website can be made easier for disabled people to use in many ways. On its website, WC3 advises on how to start making websites more accessible. 
Verifying that your website can be reached 
Some tools and services on the WC3 website can help you make sure that your site is available. 

5. Working on your website design

• How your business will be branded when you design your website 
• the layout and style 
• the colors, images, text, and video to use Staying consistent 
Visitors to your website should be able to move from page to page easily and always know where they are. You could:
• Regularly check their location and be able to easily navigate from one page to another.
• Use the same fonts and colors throughout the site; 
• make sure your page's elements have a clear visual hierarchy; 
• make sure your business logo is on every page and, when clicked, links back to the homepage; 
• put a search box on every page and make sure it's always in the same place; 
• remember the "three click rule"—people who start on your homepage should eventually end up on one of your other pages. 

Typefaces and fonts 
for pages, you should pick common styles and define a font family. 
Not only should you use common fonts, but you should also test your websites on different devices to see how they look generally. 
Quantity and placement of content: Don't put too much information on a page; it could make it harder for people to find what they need. Before reading a page in more depth, people usually scan it first, picking out the headers and subheadings. 
Placement "above the fold" may help marketing statements or "calls to action" work better. They're visible as soon as the page loads, so the user doesn't have to scroll down to read them. 
See our SEO guide for more information.

Best practices for web design 
Social networking may assist you in establishing online connections with clients and other companies. 

1. Overview 

This tutorial will teach you how to utilize social media for business to build relationships and get a competitive edge. Additionally, it will cover how to identify the best social media sites for your company and develop a social networking strategy. 
Find local social media events by searching. 

2. Selecting appropriate social media networks 
Making use of social networks might help you differentiate yourself from rivals. Interacting with your clientele online may increase visibility and establish your credibility as a reliable vendor. Social media platforms provide your company the chance to network with new people while remaining comfortable in your workplace. Never undervalue the financial, time, and other resource savings-such as avoiding travel expenses-that your business may achieve by eliminating the need to physically attend networking events. 
Social media may benefit your company in many important ways, including: 
• Hiring 
• advertising 
• Establishing a brand 
• Communication with customers 
• identifying important business relationships 
• Compiling commercial intelligence 
Knowing where your clients are on social media is crucial when deciding which platform to employ. Your efforts have to be directed at the channels they use. Sometimes the ideal option is clear-cut; for instance, you may already be aware that there is a Facebook group that your clients frequent and that represents your company's interests. 
To meet all of your objectives, you could discover that you want a mix of social networking platforms. Ensuring your advertising and messaging are well-considered and appropriate for your target demographic is a smart idea, however. Similar to email marketing, if your communications are not well-targeted at your intended audience, your company might suffer. 
Blogs 
Blogging is the practice of regularly publishing articles, analyses, and other information on a website that readers in the business community and consumers may see. The majority of blogs are interactive, enabling users to chat and comment on one another. 
Posting insightful articles on business-related topics can help you establish yourself as an expert in the area, spark debate, and improve your rapport with clients. If they are unaware of your website, blogging offers them another way to discover you. 
Internet PR 
In order to sell or advertise your product or service, you may use online public relations techniques such as commenting on or interacting with other people's blogs. To ensure that you have the correct target audience, you must be careful while selecting the blog with which to interact. 
channels on social networks 
Social network services are online communities where users may set up a profile to represent themselves and connect with others to share content, communicate, send messages, and provide recommendations. 
You have the option of signing up for a specialized business website like LinkedIn or Talkbiznow, or a generic social networking site like Facebook. 
By using social media platforms, you may create a community of interested clients who will promote your content and news on your behalf. They may also assist you in locating new suppliers and finding solutions to business-related queries. 
It takes very little time and effort to stay on top of your industry map if you have a presence on social networking sites. 
Online discussion boards 
A message board, often known as an internet forum, is a virtual space where users may post and respond to messages to ask and conduct conversations. Your reputation may be enhanced by sharing your knowledge and offering helpful advice in consumer and industry forums. 
Since many forums need posts to be approved before they can be seen, you should be very cautious about how you display any sales messages. Posting sales messages on a forum will not impress prospective consumers and might result in your posts being rejected or banned. 

3. Your approach to social media
There are a few measures you need to take to utilize social media properly and get started. 
Pay attention 
It's crucial to pay attention to what people are saying about your company online, even if you decide against doing direct social media marketing. You run the danger of alienating both present and future consumers from your brand if you don't listen. You may monitor important terms and phrases and follow the discussions people are having about you by using free apps like TweetBeep and Google Alerts. 
It's a good idea to consider your listening preferences as well. Setting certain people's groups as priorities might be helpful. Do you want to hear from all of your customers, just your local customers, or just your competitors? 
Goal and location 
After you begin to listen, you must choose which social media sites are most appropriate for your company. What topic is your audience discussing and where are they located? To interact with them in a meaningful and interesting manner, you must ascertain what their "passion points" are. 
After you begin communicating with your audience, you must determine who the "influencers" are. These are the individuals who publish often, get a lot of comments from other users, or are referenced in other people's work. These users may assist you in reaching a larger audience with your communications. 
In contrast 
Make use of your presence to interact with the community and start a conversation with clients. Instead of merely putting out sales pitches, listen to what people have to say and address their concerns to get insightful information and increase brand trust. It is crucial to communicate frequently. 
Consider the 'tone of voice you use in your material; if your audience perceives you to be sincere, receptive, and involved in your communications, they will be more likely to trust you. 
Guard 
Given that social media is a public platform, it's critical to respond to criticism promptly and openly. Resolving customer issues, offering honest apologies, and considering responding to unfavorable reviews may all help to minimize harm. Regarding some matters, you may need a follow-up phone call or email. On the other hand, attentively replying to unfavorable reviews conveys to prospective and existing clients your appreciation for providing excellent customer service. 
Examine the potential effects of unfavorable reviews on your website's search engine rating. Since it's crucial to "own" your ranking in universal search, you must take action if your brand starts to appear in unfavorable links. 
Quantify 
You must choose a few critical criteria to gauge the impact of social media in order to determine your return on investment. For a Twitter account, for instance, you may track the number of followers you have, the quantity of retweets and/or responses to your posts, and the quantity of individuals who visit your website after clicking on a link from Twitter. Measuring sentiment-what clients are saying about you-will also be necessary. Finding the ratio of good to negative comments is one way to go about doing this. 

4. Social media: benefits and drawbacks 
Too many companies join social media just because it's "the one thing"; they believe their rivals are already there and they should too. If social media use is well-thought-out and done, there are some genuine advantages. 
Among the benefits of using social media effectively for business are: 
• Captivating and relevant content will draw in prospective clients and raise brand awareness. 
• You may become recognized in your sector and react almost instantaneously to advances in the market. 
• Compared to conventional forms of marketing and advertising, it may be much less expensive. 
• By showing up in universal search results, social media material may tangentially increase connections to website content, increasing search traffic and online revenues. 
• You are able to provide better customer service and handle criticism well. 
• New methods for customers to discover you may result in additional leads. 
• A rise in advocacy and allegiance from the clients you've worked with 
The drawbacks consist of: 
• Resources must be allocated to maintaining your social media presence, answering comments, and creating fresh material. 
• If you get bad feedback, you will need to choose how to reply. In order to avoid having your tone of speech adversely impact your brand name, you would need to exercise caution while responding. 
• Measuring the ROI and relative merits of different channels may be challenging. 
• Inefficient usage might harm your image. For instance, using the network to promote sales without interacting with clients or neglecting to address unfavorable reviews 

5. Using social media to encourage creative thinking 
Utilizing social media to connect with and use the creativity of current and future clients may be a great strategy. You may include your network in the creation of new goods and services in one of two ways: 
• Crowdsourcing: requesting that members of your network come up with ideas for individual or group solutions to a specific issue your business is facing. In order to identify the top performers, the community gathers, develops, and rates the contributions. 
• Open innovation: This means that anybody may submit innovative ideas and innovations for your business to use. 
People may collaborate on a vast scale via crowdsourcing and open innovation since so many brains can connect with one another. You may get the following by integrating your internet contact network with your business: 
• The insight and originality of those who are not in your own workforce 
• the greater possibility that individuals would notice and produce novel concepts that might not otherwise be acknowledged 
• the external viewpoint of clients and prospective clients, who could see problems and possibilities that you are blind to. 
• more brand advocacy and consumer loyalty as a result of being involved in your company's offer 
• reduced expenses for creating new goods or improvements, and a higher chance of their commercial success 
A few such downsides are as follows: 
The absence of sustained motivation among the participants 
• The absence of formal agreements, employee agreements, or non-disclosure agreements 
• challenges in overseeing a major project and maintaining a cooperative relationship with crowdsourced labor 
In order for crowdsourcing to be really beneficial, you must provide incentives to the individuals who contribute to your business, such as awards or just acknowledging contributions. Take care not to incite unrest by disregarding the contributions of others. 

6. using social media for marketing 

Eventually, connecting with other companies via internet business networks comes down to selling your products or services. Realizing that online networking is more than simply another sales channel you can use the same strategy for as other internet marketing is crucial. It is important to pay close attention to the network members themselves and the amount of advertising they are willing to put up with on their network. 
Strategies for networking and marketing 
You may utilize the same kinds of advertising that you may already be employing online inside the online networks you join. Among them are: 
• Banner advertising: These advertisements may be interactive, audio, or video-based, and they take up a specific space on websites that can be rented out. The typical mechanism for banner advertising is "click-through," wherein viewers click on the banner and are sent to the website that is sponsoring the advertisement. 
• Email campaigns: they include sending customized emails with discounts, offers, and other promotions to a specific group of consumers or prospective new ones. 
• Viral marketing: internet initiatives that urge users to "tell a friend" or "word-of-mouth" the message to their social networks. 
• Link building: A few social networking sites let users post keyword-rich links to their profile pages, blogs, and other editable areas. This may help with your optimization approach for search engines. 
Additionally, you could wish to use social media sites to benefit from more recent, focused types of advertising. This could consist of: 
• updating your status updates with links or mentions of goods or services 
• Targeted banner advertising that is automatically created using user demographic information from a website. 
• establishing 'pages' or 'groups' to promote a new product or contest, or to raise awareness of a brand 
• providing inexpensive or free applications bearing your brand, including games or practical tools 
Recognizing users on internet networks 
Each of the aforementioned forms of advertising may already be being used by you to advertise your company online. Recall that networks are groups of individuals and companies who have voluntarily joined them in order to exchange business connections rather than only to see advertisements. 
You need to assess how much marketing and promotional content you can send these members. Furthermore, the kind of promotion you use matters. For example, an advertising campaign that becomes viral may not be suitable at all among a group of corporate directors. 
To be sure that any marketing you perform is permitted, you should also review the terms and conditions of any online network you want to utilize. 
Personalized advertising 
These days, online networks are turning into a major hub for advertising space. Companies have quickly realized that targeted marketing messages are best served by the captive audience found on internet networks. 
Online network advertising placement is becoming more and more popular. Think carefully about the marketing message you want to convey and the internet networks you want to leverage, just as you would with other marketing expenditures for your company. Your investment will provide a healthy return if you do this. 
Numerous advertising methods are available on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, including pay per click, pay per view, banner advertisements, Flash ads, and classified announcements. Advertising may be tailored to network members based on a range of demographic factors (such as geography, marital status, and age). Certain websites provide research tools that might provide your company with useful client profiles. This will enable you to decide with confidence if a certain social networking site fits in with your marketing plan. 
Dos and don'ts in network marketing 
There are a few dos and don'ts you should go by if you want to combine online networking into your marketing mix: 
Take action: 
Examine the network or networks you want to advertise on in great detail. Recognize the participants' identities and the marketing messages they are receptive to. 
• Create metrics that will allow you to monitor and evaluate the return on your investment. 
• Make sure you are informed about and abide by all laws and rules that currently pertain to internet marketing. 
Avoid: 
• Send unsolicited messages to other users on the network. In online network marketing, quality outweighs quantity by a wide margin. 
• Never, without consent, sell or otherwise disclose any personal information about the individuals or companies in your target network. 

7. Social media safety 

Regardless matter how many online networks you want to join, security has to be your primary priority. Make sure you are utilizing internet networks securely since identity theft, spoof emails, and security dangers to small and big businesses are on the increase. 
Internet safety 
You put your company and yourself at risk of attack from hackers and other bad actors every time you log in to access an internet network. Despite what could seem to be an unending flow of identity theft and security risks, you are not helpless. To make sure you utilize internet networks securely, abide with the following rules: 
• Change your password on a frequent basis and keep your login information safe. 
• If someone calls you out of the blue claiming to be a member of a network you are a part of, proceed with caution. It may be a phishing attempt. Phishing is the practice of using emails that seem authentic, as if they are from a bank or other trustworthy source, to gain personal information. 
• Keep an eye out for theft of business identity. Internet networks can utilize your company name without your consent or knowledge. For further information on this kind of security danger, call the Companies House Contact Center at Tel 0303 1234 500. 
Refrain from disclosing any private information about your company or yourself without first verifying the identity of the inquirer. 
• To lessen the frequency of spam and phishing attempts, employ filtering software if you utilize email-based internet networks. 
• Make sure you have enough protection in place to guard your wireless network from hacker attacks and eavesdropping if you access online networks via wireless internet access. 
• Refrain from opening email attachments from senders you aren't familiar with, such as coworkers. If you are familiar with the sender, ask them if the attachment isn't what you anticipated. Avoid opening attachments that include Trojan horses that might infect your computer, such as those with the file extensions ".exe" (an executable file) or ".scr," which is the file extension used for Windows screensavers. 
• Refrain from clicking on links that have been added to messages on any social networking site you visit. These might be links to news about entertainment, current affairs, or other popular websites. These URLs have the ability to infect your computer and direct you to phishing websites. Make sure you are where you think you should be by constantly checking the website address you are sent to after clicking on a link. 
• Refrain from clicking on promotional emails and pop-up windows, and use caution when allowing any program to install itself on your computer. 
 

8. Checklist for social media 

There are several things to take into account when choosing which online networks to join or when establishing your own network. To make sure you join the network or networks that will provide you with the desired commercial advantages, planning is essential. 
A few general guidelines for joining a network: 
• Create a user profile. Relationships are the foundation of networking. Your connection with companies will get closer the more they know about you. When disclosing details about you and your company, use caution. Make sure your data is always being stored securely. 
Observe the network guidelines. Every network has unique guidelines. Make sure you understand the protocol that has been established. 
• Retain relationships. Maintaining a big number of contacts as you join additional networks might be challenging. Decide which important connections you wish to stay in touch with. You'll be able to better manage your time and resources as a result. 
• Produce fresh, interesting material that is unique. On the networks you are a part of, nobody wants to read dull posts. Every time you post anything to a network, try to publish something interesting and important. 
• Post ads on networks that have been carefully selected. It is obvious that the internet networks that have grown over the last few years are an excellent place for your company to advertise. Network websites are now displaying banner advertisements. The kind of advertising that appears on social networks and the messages it conveys need to be carefully considered. To create a compelling advertisement that your network's members will embrace, research their profiles. 
Checklist for joining a professional network: 
• Select the appropriate network for your company's objectives. Why are you signing up for an online network? What results do you want to get from this exercise? 
Keep the hard sell at bay. Your primary goal in joining an online network can be to market the items or products that your company sells. Hard sales pitches should be avoided on your networks since they are often turned down. 
• Allocate sufficient resources. Consider your time and resource availability before joining one or more online networks that assist your industry. These network connections need to be maintained by you and your company, which might require more time and money than you would first imagine. 
• Strengthen your company's brand. Adding a network to your firm may do wonders for its reputation. These days, developing deep working ties via networks is a crucial part of contemporary branding strategy. 
• As part of your marketing mix, use internet networking. While marketing may be the primary focus of online networks, don't overlook the other marketing strategies your company employs. It is simple to allocate resources to online networking in an excessive manner. Remember to use your other channels for marketing and advertising as well; they work just as well.