One of the most significant and most popular ways of building an online presence is by creating a website. In this digital era, businesses are beginning to rely more on their websites as the primary contact point. Consequently, small businesses need to be very attentive to what their sites are saying to customers. Once you establish an online presence, you can develop a more detailed digital marketing strategy. Your strategy will depend on your business goals.
It is very likely that as a small business, you have encountered the concept of digital marketing. While it appears easy, there is so much more to this concept than just the surface. Before we go into the best practices, we must understand why a small business website is crucial.
Any small business’s primary aim is to produce some sort of sales. It could be a product or a service you want the community to purchase. Your business needs to be seen. Not just by word of mouth- even though this will also get you somewhere. Still, you want something that will get you noticed by the masses.
Your small business requires a website for two key reasons:
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Accessibility-
A small business website provides a platform where potential clients and customers can access it 24/7. Most companies or businesses close at a particular time of the day. This means access is limited to the specified time. Having a business website solves this problem effectively and efficiently. That is because a website remains open for accessibility throughout. So, your customers and your potential buyers won’t be limited to strict business hours.
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Visibility-
No product will sell unless people see it. The same concept applies even to small businesses. Visibility is one key factor in attracting and getting sales for small businesses. It goes a long way in enhancing brand recognition and building authority in whatever field you are in. The first place that will provide potential customers with information regarding your products and services is your business website. Not just that. It also provides a business with a place to produce and release valuable content to help drive sales and build reputability.
This article looks at some of the best practices for building and improving a small business website. It will give your insight into web design standards such as color scheme, navigation, and utilization of your social media and email marketing to ensure more tremendous business success and leads optimization. Let’s jump right in, shall we?
10 Best Practices For Small Business Website
1. Use a Simple and Easy-to-Use Navigation
When it comes to website loading, the less time it takes for people to find what they are looking for, the better. Most people expect minimal loading time and simple navigation. One clear thing is that you really don’t have the luxury of time through your website. If visitors do not find what they are looking for, they will get frustrated and leave your site.
Consider following this navigation layout for your website:
– Home
– About Us
– Services/Products/Who We Serve
– Blog/Content
– Contact Us
You can choose to include subheadings to provide further guidance to consumers on the information they are looking for. The most important thing is that you do not want to overload your navigation system. Ensure that your most important pages have the highest accessibility. Optimize the viewer experience of your site if you’re going to make all the difference for your brand.
2. Focus on Developing a Good Design
A good design creates a good impression. A good impression will attract more leads and more sales, eventually. The overall design of your small business website is very vital. It is not just the face of your brand. Your small business website has the potential to attract new business and convert consumers to clients. Don’t just for an aesthetically pleasing design. Your web design must be functional. It must appeal to your consumer’s senses. When visitors come across your site, what do they see, hear, and feel? This appeal will directly affect your reputation.
3. Invest in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Visibility is a very critical aspect when it comes to your small business website. Does your site appear in Google search results? Search engine optimization is a very vital practice. If you are hoping to stand apart from your competitors, invest in learning how to optimize your site and its content. It’s okay if you cannot do it yourself- that’s why we have experts, right? In the long run, you will be able to increase the overall quality and quantity of your website’s traffic, helping gain exposure to your brand through organic search engine results.
4. Be Familiar with the Content you Create
Are you looking to build your brand’s exposure? Or perhaps you want to create a sense of trust and authority with your small business website? Simple- check on your content creation. Is it SEO optimized? Because SEO-optimized content will help bring in those views that will hopefully convert into sales down the line. It’s not about any random stuff. This is an opportunity for you to take advantage of your site.
Let your site be a place to expand your knowledge of your business. Let it be a platform for you to showcase your expertise. Make use of social media channels to drive traffic to your site. It’s not about any random stuff. This is an opportunity for you to take advantage of your site. Let your site be a place to expand your knowledge of your business. Let it be a platform for you to showcase your expertise. Make use of social media channels to drive traffic to your site.
5. Provide Contact Information
An up-to-date and readily available contact information will make it easy for sure prospects to reach you. And that’s not all. Contact information shows how credible your business is. People will find it difficult to believe you if they have a hard time connecting with you. Your prospects will have a hard time believing you can help them with what they need. Ensure you provide up-to-date contact details, including your phone number and email address.
6. Build a Mobile-Friendly Website
Most people access websites via their mobile phones. You might build a great website that looks fantastic when viewed on a desktop or laptop. But if your website becomes very cluttered, disorganized, and difficult to navigate when viewed on a cell phone or tablet, you may need to rethink. A mobile-unfriendly website will cause you to lose potential leads. About 8 out of 10 consumers will stop engaging with a site that does not display content properly on their device. Go for a responsive design that automatically adjusts to the size of your website. It will serve all devices with the same code that adjusts for every screen size.
7. Social Media
No one can understate the power of social media in business. And you can use the various social media platforms to promote your brand and even drive content. In line with this, ensure you link your social accounts anywhere you can. You can connect it to your emails, guest posts, social bios, or blog articles.
More than two-thirds of the existing websites include social media website icons in the footer.
This kind of statistic already shows that this is a standard. It is one of the best practices recommended for the most traffic to your site. Your social media icons will steer your audience outside your website. Because of this, it may cost you traffic increasing the bounce rates and hurt results. For this reason, place your social media icons in your site’s footer. This ensures that a visitor only finds the social icons by the time they’ve probably explored your site for a while.
8. Email Marketing
Although considered an older form of maintaining connection, email marketing is still one of the most effective ways of conducting a follow-up. Email marketing plays a significant role in keeping customers and potential customers in the loop of your services and content. By looking at statistics, email marketing is still a very relevant form of marketing. Ensure that your site’s email capture forms synchronize with your email marketing system to enable smooth access and connection.
9. Consistency
Make your website consistent with the look of your business cards, brochures, and other promotional materials. Your website serves as a point of contact with your customers. Inconsistency will lead to confusion between projects. Customers will not be sure of who they are dealing with—being consistent shows that you are organized and have your act together as a business.
10. Display Quality Photos
HubSpot reports that people can recall up to 65% of visually depicted information for 72 hours. On the other hand, they can only remember 10% of the information they hear for the same period. About 37% of the population are visual learners. Using this to your advantage, you should feature high-quality photos and logos. Quality photos that speak about your brands will help your audience gauge your brand and content quickly. In what way are quality photos compelling?
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- You will attract more views to your site. The more the views, the higher the chances of conversion.
- You will decrease the bounce rate. A reduced bounce rate means more traffic and a chance to rank higher.
- Photos from a link between customer and company. In the long run, users are more likely to choose your services.
- Photos increase user engagement which makes them spend more time on your site.
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