Setting up a business website
Domain names
A domain name is a redirect from an Internet Protocol (IP) address, which is a series of digits such as 136.173.60.59 or 91.194.202.11. The best domain names act as a digital entrance to your shop and are easy to remember, such as europarl.europa.eu. Remember to keep it user-friendly and simple.
Once you have chosen the appropriate one for you, the next step is registering the domain name to ensure that it remains unique to your site.
Displaying contact and other essential information on your website
As a business, you are legally obliged to provide customers with the following information on your website:
- your identity, such as your trading name
- legal physical and e-mail address and telephone number; if different, the legal address of your establishment
- your legal status, legal form and, if you are registered in a trade or similar public register, the name of the public register for your activity and your registration number (plus your professional title and Member State in which it was granted, if the activity is based on a regulated profession)
- VAT identification number, if your activity charges VAT for the goods or services it provides
- details of any supervisory authority, if your activity is subject to a professional authorisation scheme
- link from your website to the Online Dispute Resolution platform, a service provided by the European Commission to easily solve issues with consumers
- general terms and conditions, terms of sale and other applicable information related to the sales transaction that you must provide to the customer during the ordering process
- privacy policy, cookie policy, and other policies applicable to personal data protection
If you are subject to professional qualifications, you must also comply with the requirements of the countries in which you provide services, which each national contact point can provide more information about. In this case, you should also provide details about your insurance or applicable financial guarantees, as well as a reference to the rules governing your profession and how to access them. If you already offer or want to provide your professional services abroad, visit our related section for more information.
Disclaimers and other legal notices
A disclaimer is a legal notice that is placed on your website in an effort to limit your liability from the outcome of the use of your site. The disclaimer is intended for general information and, although it cannot fully protect your website against legal actions, it does help in relation to:
- accuracy of content on your website
- potential copyright issues
- transmission of computer viruses
Almost anything you place on your website can be covered by using a disclaimer. The disclaimer is usually displayed on every page of your website (for example, in the footer of each page via a hyperlink). You can prompt the the user to read the full disclaimer when using your services.
Disclaimers depend on your discretion and can be revised by a legal expert, but can include elements such as:
- copyright notice (aiming to protect your intellectual property rights from copyright infringement by other people)
- data protection and privacy compliance (informing visitors to your website how you comply with the data protection and privacy rules in regards to their data)
- the use of cookies
- your liability related to the accuracy of information provided on the website
Using cookies on your website
Cookies are information exchanged with the visitor to your website. They are stored in a text file on your visitor's hard drive the moment they land on your page. There are different types of cookies:
- Session cookies enable you to keep track of your visitors' activities and to recognise them when they move from page to page within your website. For example, when you provide a shopping basket feature, without session cookies, your visitors' shopping baskets would become empty each time they open a new page.
- Persistent, permanent or stored cookies help remember your visitors' information and settings, such as language preferences and permanent login, when they visit your website in the future. They are not deleted when the browser is closed. Persistent cookies are also used to provide information about the number of visitors, the average time spent on a page and the performance of your website in general.
The types of cookies that you use either require consent or don't, depending on their intended use. Be sure to review this information and prompt users when necessary.
Avoiding unjustified geo-blocking
When you sell goods and services through your website, you cannot offer less favourable terms or deny customers' access to specific items simply because of their location or nationality, except in exceptional cases when a specific national law might require it. These practices are known as geo-blocking.
The geo-blocking regulation covers online and offline sales of tangible goods such as clothing, footwear or accessories, as well as certain online digital services (cloud services, data warehousing, website hosting). There are obligations you must observe when you set up your website to make sure that it avoids geo-blocking practices:
+ +
| Obligation | What does it mean? |
|---|---|
| Allow user access | You must not restrict access to your online shop or other online services only based on your customers' IP address, nationality or geographical location. However, provided you offer the due justifications, you can deny access where specific national law requires this. |
| Design forms to cover all applicable territories | When you provide forms for customers' billing addresses or contact details, you should allow them to fill their personal details in a format that is not limited to a specific country or region. On the other hand, delivery address formats can be limited only to those countries where you provide shipping. |
| Do not redirect users | You must obtain your customers' consent explicitly before redirecting them to another location-specific version of your online shop. In this case, you should also give them the option to return to the site they were initially on. You can have this consent saved under the customers' preferences. You should also enable customers to withdraw this consent at any time. |
| Do not change prices | You should not change product offers, commercial conditions or pricing in your online shop automatically based on your customers' geographic details such as IP address, residence, or means of payment. |
| Make no distinction between similar payment methods | If your online shop accepts a specific means of payment such as debit or credit cards from the same card association, you should enable this means for all customers as long as the cards were issued in the EU/EEA. You cannot automatically decline a means of payment only because it was issued in a certain territory |
Making your site usable and accessible
E-accessibility helps make websites easier to navigate for people with disabilities, the elderly, and those living in places that are still developing technologically. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has published a guide to essential components for web accessibility to help you develop a website that complies with e-accessibility regulations. If you have already developed your website, you can use this guide to determine its level of e-accessibility.
Once you have developed or updated your website according to W3C guidelines and evaluated it to determine its level of e-accessibility, you can display a distinctive icon on your website to advertise that conformity.
You can also see how the European Union implements web accessibility requisites in the Europa Web Guide.
Usability refers to how easy it is to navigate through your website, the way your site arranges and displays information and how comfortable it is for users to interact with it. Better usability increases search engine rankings, the number and quality of visits, and can lead to a better conversion rate, which can include the number of people who purchase something once they visit your website.
The main elements of web usability are:
- responsiveness, meaning that your site works well on computers, tablets and smartphones
- total website loading time, which should take a maximum of 2 to 3 seconds
- visibility of the site's main sections, easily identifiable through menus with clear sections
- visibility of access to the homepage, with links on the main menu section or in the header
- link visibility, though easily identifiable cues that stand out from the general text, including underlining
- positioning of contact information in a clear and visible space
- a clear sitemap, which helps to classify information and improve search engine rankings
- breadcrumbs, which show users the section and subsection of the website that they're looking at so they can orient themselves
- number of clicks from the homepage, which is ideally no more than 3 clicks to the deepest part of the site
- browser operability, meaning that your site functions properly on any browser, across multiple operating systems and types of devices
There are many tools to help you correct any web usability errors on your site – including loading time, use of images and programming errors. The European Commission has established a set of usability tests to aid you in improving your website.