Is your website working for you? Do you even have a website yet? Since many clients and customers won’t do business with a company unless they can first check them out on the Web, even a very simple website adds credibility to your business, leading to increased sales.

In a nutshell, here’s what you want a business website to do:

• Provide basic information about your business, products and services.

• Answer typical customer questions or concerns.

• Motivate people to buy or use your services.

If you’re more ambitious, you may actually want to sell stuff from your website — in other words, engage in “e-commerce.”

To make sure you’ve got an effective business website, I’ve put together a checklist of what you should — and should not — put on yours.

Must-haves for every business website include:

•The name of your company, website address, and tagline (if you have one). Display your business name and website address prominently on every page, since visitors may land on one of your website’s inside pages through search engines.

• What you sell or do. Make it very clear what business you’re in. Provide a brief description of your products or services.

• Photos/graphics. websites attract more attention when they have graphic elements, such as your logo, photos of your products or place of business, a photo of yourself or key employees. Even low-cost stock photos add visual interest.

• Hours of operation. When your store or place of business is open, what time you offer tech support or customer service.

• “About Us.” You need at least one page with background information about your business and the key people who run the company. Personally, I avoid doing business with any Web-based business that doesn’t tell me about the actual people involved, and I suspect there are other consumers like me.

• “Contact Us.” Give an email address and, ideally, a phone number. Also, provide a physical (off-line) address. This is part of the Better Business Bureau Online Reliability code, and it’s a good idea for every business website.

• Tabs/links on front page to interior pages. If you have more than just a home page, put tabs or clearly visible links on your front/home page to make it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for.

• Privacy notice. If you ask for any info from users, even email addresses, include a privacy notice, detailing how you’ll use the information you collect. Generally, you should not give, sell, lend, or otherwise share information you collect with any one else.

Recommended for most business sites:

• A FAQ (frequently asked questions). Save yourself some time by answering the inquiries that people have most often. Also, many people are reluctant to call or email with questions, so this actually helps motivate them to do business with you.

• Testimonials. Do your current customers love you and tell you so? Testimonials are powerful selling tools.

• Press. Have you had positive reviews in the media? Won awards? Add any information that adds credibility and helps motivate customers.

If you make sales directly from your site, include:

• Product details. You’ll need in-depth info about the products you sell online, including photos whenever possible.

• Security practices. Let customers know that you are keeping their information (such as credit card numbers) secure.

• Shipping. Indicate how quickly you’ll fill orders, which shipping services you use and offer, and shipping prices and options

• Return policies/guarantees: Make these very clear.

• Customer service hours.

This information is critical for “bricks and mortar” businesses, which have a physical location that customers can visit:

• Hours you’re open.

• Location and directions. You can even add a map from one of the online map services, such as Mapquest or Google Maps.

• A photo of your place of business or interior.

Do not put the following on your website: your home address or phone number; the email addresses of too many employees (software “crawlers” scrape websites for email addresses, and this can increase your spam); anything too personal, such as family photos, vacation details, etc.

Of course, the dedicated team at Rodes Web Design is always available to assist both new and existing customers with these issues, however, if you choose to attempt the project on your own the basics mentioned in this article should give you a great start