How to Get Your Small Business Website Up and Running
For a lot of small businesses, having a functional and appealing website is the cornerstone of their marketing strategy. This is because just about every consumer uses online resources to guide their spending habits, and other marketing methods like TV and radio have a much larger barrier to entry. When you’re just starting out, a website may be all you have, so you want to make sure you put your best foot forward. Here are some tips you can use.
As a starter, if you’re building a website from scratch, you want to be careful not to overextend yourself. Many business owners see the top companies in their field and want to start at that point right away, which means all the latest features and an extensive website design. This is all well and good, but there may not be the money or time budgeted in order to do all that at once. As a result, a major part of getting your small business website functional is prioritizing. Your top goals, initially, should be making sure that your site loads quickly, it has the information to answer customer questions, and that it is mobile-friendly. This last point may sound like a bit of a surprise, but there are wide swaths of customers who use mostly mobile sites. Don’t miss out on that customer base.
Answering customer questions is one point that can’t be neglected—the importance of good website copy. There are multiple reasons why you want to take extra care in this area. Part of it is practical—we all know the importance of SEO for small businesses, and choosing your keywords wisely is a major part of doing well in rankings. However, there are other benefits as well. For example, your business website should have a clear and prominent call to action. This is the link between a prospective customer and a paying customer, and you want to make that transition smooth as possible.
When you’ve hit these points, the time has come for you to concentrate on other aspects of your website, namely, the visual design. It’s a bit of a balancing act here, as you want visual appeal, but you don’t want things to get too cluttered or load too slow. In general, don’t be afraid of simplicity, especially in the beginning. The quicker it is to navigate your website, the easier it is for viewers to use your calls to action and go to the next step.
Statistics show that the majority of businesses fail during their first couple of years, and while there are a variety of different reasons why, one major issue is a failure to draw in customers in those shaky early years. This is why you don’t want to risk a website that is distracting or fails to convert. Enlist a web design service to know that this essential part of your business is in the hands of those who know it best.
