Welcome to the Small Business Guide to Website Design.

Your website is the heart of your online marketing efforts. All other channels should drive users back to your website, so it's critical that you build the most effective one that you can. Good website design is way bigger than just building a site that looks appealing. Truly effective website design is about the substance underlying the style.

A well-designed site is one that gives you the best shot at showing up in relevant searches, getting discovered by prospects, and providing a superior user experience for visitors no matter where they are in the customer journey.

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Full table of contents

1 Design basics

When you hear the words "website design" what's the first thing that comes to mind? If you immediately thought of font, color, or images, you're missing out on the bigger design picture. Those superficial elements are part of a website's style, but a website's design is about creating a highly-functional site that drives conversions.

#13636 Building for structure, not style

2 Building for structure, not style

The way your site is structured has everything to do with how successful you'll be in attracting prospects and making conversions. When you build your site with a strong structural foundation, you'll outpace the competition who focused on style over substance.

3 Building for SEO

Not matter how well-structured and beautiful your website is, it's all for naught if no one ever sees it. There are steps you can take to incorporate SEO into the very core of your site. This is the kind of design that ensures you rank on that first page of search results and get the greatest reach for your site.

4 Generating trust

Establishing trust is one of the most important steps in wooing prospects. And maintaining trust is the key to turning one-time customers into repeat referrers. Building a website that demonstrates that your company is honest, consistent, and takes security seriously is the way to clear the trust hurdle.