Where's the menu?

When potential customers visit a website they have a very specific purpose in mind. For instance, when I visit a restaurant’s website I am interested in their menu…maybe their hours of operations, a map and pricing too…but mainly it’s the menu.

When thinking about your own website, why are people visiting? What is it that a potential customer is looking for when they visit your website? That should be the main, and maybe even exclusive, purpose of the site you design.

As a small business owner, you do not need a website that does everything. You need a website that does a few things and does them very well.

Maybe you need a place to showcase the work that you have done for others, to display your menu and the beautiful food you create, to harvest email addresses and contact information of people who are interested in what you have to offer, to push people into your catalog to buy.

Whatever your purpose, you’ve got to keep it simple. If you have 100 words on your website, the average user will only read 49 of them. If you’ve got more words than that, the percentage read plummets. Use attractive photos, a simple message and a pleasing design to target potential customers into that one thing that you want them to do.

And for goodness sake, make sure I can find your menu when I’m on my phone!