When you redesign your website, often you will add, rename and remove some pages as part of the restructuring that inevitably happens at the same time.

You should take care to remove your old website before uploading your new website; this will ensure any old pages aren’t left lying around for visitors to stumble upon and become lost.

Then, make sure your web developer puts in place a “redirect” for every old page to an equivalent new page (or the home page, if there isn’t a good match.) Not only will this benefit visitors who might have bookmarked a certain page, or clicked a link from another person’s website; but the search engines will use this information to update its index and make sure it displays your new pages rather than your old pages in the search results.

You want your website to reach the widest audience, so be careful you are not alienating large segments by having a website that does not work properly in different computers, browsers and screen resolutions.

Endeavour to test your website on both Windows and Macintosh platforms, and install both Internet Explorer and Firefox on the Windows platform. Change your screen resolution and look at the website in 1024×768, 1280×1024 and 1400×800. You can go further, but this set of combinations will ensure you’re set for the vast majority of your visitors.

A common mistake made by many small business website owners is to have an order form or booking form that accepts credit card details, securing it by having an SSL certificate, but then having the form email the results to the website operator.

Unless you are using encrypted email, you have defeated the purpose of using a secure web page, because the email that contains the credit card details is far less secure than even an unencrypted web page. Security is only as secure as the weakest link!

If you need to process the credit cards yourself, the most cost-effective solution is to store an encrypted version of the credit card details in a database, and have an interface for the website operator to login and view those details, again with an SSL certificate securing that page. A procedure to delete credit card details once processed is important with this solution.

Many folks prefer to print out web pages to organise, read later, or, frankly, because it’s just more enjoyable to relax in a comfy chair with a glass of red and piece of real paper in your hand.

You can make your website print out more elegantly by having your web developer alter the layout of the website when printed. You can also do the same for mobile phones if you feel this type of visitor represents a relevant proportion of your target market.

This type of attention to detail can set your website apart from others.

If you allow customers to enter credit card details through your website — whether or not you actually process it on-the-spot — you need to have an SSL certificate.

Your web hosting company might allow you to use a “shared” certificate, which will exist on their domain, but this is not as professional as having your own SSL certificate on your own domain.

When you secure your booking or order page, also make sure the page that is displayed afterwards is secured, as well as any pages that allow you to view a customer’s credit card details.

And remember, your SSL certificate is not only for encryption, but also trust. Ensure your SSL certificate is purchased from an established and well-known provider, as this plays a part in how customers perceive your trustworthiness.