7 Tips for A Successful Small Business Website
As a small business here in Sydney, without a small business website, you know for a fact you need customers. To do that, you’ve done a great job in print advertising. Word of mouth has provided you with small, but consistent referrals on a weekly basis.
But in 2017, that’s not enough to ensure long-term success and having customers to fill in the gaps on your slow days. To ensure your small business’ success, you need to create success for your business online.
In this article, we’re going to help you get started by providing 7 tips for a successful small business website, that will get you started down the right path.
1.) Easy to Access Contact Information
Starting off small, a must-have for small business websites is easy to access contact information. If a customer is trying to contact you, they don’t need to go through 2-3 pages to find your phone number or email.
Make sure your email and phone number are not only prominent and on every relevant page, but clickable as well. With mobile friendly websites, customers should now simply “click” an email or phone number to contact.
2.) Call to Action on Every Page
As an individual user navigates through your website, they are creating opportunities for you. You, the small business website owner, need to provide enticing call to actions for specific products or services. Each page of your website needs to have a call to action that drives the customer through the sales funnel, and create the sale.
3.) Mobile-Responsive Design
As mentioned above, mobile devices have become the primary tool for users to search, buy and connection on the internet. It’s crucial that your website is mobile-responsive, and conforms to all device resolutions. This will give your visitor an unfettered experience of your website.
Also remember that font size and image size matters when talking about responsive website designs. If your fonts are too small, or images too big, that’s going to cause issues for your visitors, and they may bounce.
4.) Well-Written, Easy to Digest Content
Small businesses tend to rely on organic and social traffic. This means you’re probably going to have a good bit of content written at some point or another. Of course, you need to make sure that content meets SEO standards. It’s also important to ensure the content is also written for humans, and easy to digest and decide to choose your business for their needs.
5.) Clear, Crisp Imagery that Works
Many websites today are built using the Retina image optimisation software. This allows access from devices like HD laptops, desktops and large mobile devices. Visitors expect high quality, HD imagery delivered as fast as possible.
It’s also important to remember that a picture is worth a 1000 words. Take the time to understand your visitor and combine your services or products with imagery that builds credibility, and relays the exact message you’re trying to convey.
6.) Lighting-Fast Loading Times
In addition to HD imagery, visitors also want their websites to load as fast as possible. Proof if this is the creation of Google Page speed. It’s a suberb tool for understanding how your website loads for users on mobile and desktop.
Research shows that the faster your website loads for your visitor, the higher chances you have of keeping that visitor and converting them.
7.) Quality About & Contact Pages
If a first-time visitor is navigating your small business website, chances are they are just learning about you through organic or social search, meaning your opportunity to build credibility is reliant on their impression of your business.
Be sure to take time to get some great photos of you and your staff, along with a bit of history for your About page, so that you can differentiate yourself a bit from your competitors, and give your new visitor an idea of why they should choose you.
Don’t procrastinate on the contact us page either. This a great place to entice your visitor to connect with you on social media networks, or provide them directions to your business. Remember the clickable email and phone links mentioned above? Make them big and bold, because you know if they are visiting this page, they are looking to connect.
Much like owning a small business, your small business website is an ongoing experience of growth and understanding of your target audience, and industry best practices. That means your website needs to have all of these tips and more to ensure its long-term success.
Founded in 2015, Elegant Web Services is a full-service Internet Marketing, Web Design agency based in Sydney, creating winning solutions for businesses and professionals who want to build or improve their presence online.
