4 essential tips for building a startup website
By Will Corry, September 2015
Launching a successful startup can be challenging in any industry, especially in today’s ultra-competitive online environment. As society continues to grow fonder of the World Wide Web, startups without websites are becoming like unicorns – you won’t find one any time soon.
That’s because almost everyone understands that the internet can play a vital role in the success of any young company in the 21st century. With that said, let’s look at four essential tips that every startup should heed when building their company website: Graphics by Shutterstock
1. Showcase Everything Professionally
Many small startups choose to leave their site bare and minimal during the initial phases of funding. This is a huge mistake because as well know, first impressions are everything. You may think to yourself “oh, we’ll improve the site later,” but taking the initiative to make sure your site is as professional as possible from the start is the only way to ensure an optimal response from lenders, partners, and the people who will be investing in your company in the long-term.
2. Convey with Content
Images, videos, infographics, flash animations, and other forms of media can be very aesthetically appealing and can certainly be effective marketing components. However, without well-written content to provide a narrative, the visitor is left to put words to the pictures themselves. Your startup’s site should tell a story about your company, its products and service, and its vision. Everything worth mentioning about your company should be accessible on your site, along with detailed pictures and descriptions of all your company’s offerings or prototypes.
3. Use Responsive Design
Responsive design elements ensure that all of the pages on your site will look good on any display size, browser or operating system. Since investors will likely be viewing your startup site from a variety of devices, it’s a good idea to make sure your online headquarters look professional to all eyes at all times. In addition to making your website compatible across all devices, it is also a good idea to use a powerful hosting plan that will facilitate fast page loading times and minimal downtime. This is especially true if your startup is trying to provide the best reseller hosting at a low cost.
4. See Your Site from an Investor’s Perspective
Finally, as a startup one of your primary goals should be to solicit funding to promote the expeditious expansion of the company. It is a known fact that investors will consider the quality of a startup website and physical place of business before rendering a judgment on whether to invest in their future. So be sure to scrutinise and critique your own site from the perspective or prospective investors.
Don’t Build it and Forget It
In closing, we’ll leave you with this bonus tip – startup websites aren’t static, or at least they shouldn’t be. They should be dynamic, gradually growing to include more content and serving as a digital bulletin board for all company news and developments. Take pride in periodically modifying your design theme or keeping your investors up-to-date and you’ll see much better results in every round of funding.
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