Seven tips to help you build a better website for your small business
Did you know that, according to recent statistics, as many as 36% of small businesses still don’t have a website? It’s true, and if you’re part of that 36%, you need to create a small business website fast.
Having a website gives you access to a bigger customer base, gives you access to more marketing opportunities, and makes it easy for customers to buy from you. Yet if you’re new to the world of business websites, you need to learn about the fundamentals of small business website design.
In this guide, we’re going to take a look at how to make a small business website that stands out from the crowd. One that will turn heads and attract more business. Are you ready to learn more? If so, read on for seven helpful tips, and enjoy creating your website!
1) Avoid the cheapest hosting packages
When you build a website, you need a physical location for your site’s servers. As this is outside the realm of possibility for most people, you’ll likely turn to a small business website hosting company.
Now, while it may be tempting to opt for one of the cheapest packages, you need to look beyond the price. Sure, the cheapest packages tend to be very cheap, but they come with some significant drawbacks, too.
Cheap packages are inevitably on what’s called shared hosting. This means that your site is on a server with many other sites. If the other sites are busy, then your site will slow down too, giving your customers a worse experience.
As well as that, if one of the other sites on the server receives a penalty from Google for spam or another issue, you will suffer too. This is because your IP address will be the same as theirs. Avoid shared hosting if it’s at all possible.
It’s also important to ensure that your business has reliable internet. Companies like Spectrum Internet offer bundles and plans you can choose from.
2) Make sure your site supports mobile browsers
We spend a lot of time online on our phones. Americans alone spend three and a half hoursonline on their mobile devices every day. This means that if your site doesn’t look good on mobile, you’re actively hurting your customers.
When you’re using a small business website builder, make sure that you can take a look at the mobile version of your site. This is vital: if your mobile website is the same as your desktop one, but squashed into less screen space, few people will use your mobile site.
Yet not only does this hurt your customers, but it also hurts your business more directly. Google puts a premium on mobile sites and looks at them before the desktop version. This means that you’ll rank lower in search results if your site performs badly on mobile.
3) Keep it simple
The old marketing rule of KISS (keep it simple, stupid) applies here. If your site is full of scripts and uncompressed images, or if it has a heavyweight theme, your site will be a lot slower.
Why would your customers use your website if it’s very slow? The answer is simple: a lot of them won’t. Instead, they’ll go to a competitor with a better website.
You need to make sure that your site runs on a lightweight theme and that it has as few scripts as you can get away with. You should also install a caching plugin: this will store your website’s vital information on the user’s device, which makes loading times far faster after their first visit.
4) Include your contact details
Google tries to make its search results relevant to the local area of the searcher. One way it does this is by prioritizing local businesses over companies from further afield.
To boost your local SEO, you need to make sure that you include a “contact us” page on your website that includes your contact details. You should include an address, a phone number, and an email. The phone number’s area code and the address will help you rank far better in local searches.
5) Include calls to action on your pages
Calls to action are a vital part of any website. A great call to action entices the reader to do something, whether it’s to check out your products, contact you, or learn more about your business.
Each page on your site should include a relevant call to action. Without one, your users are less likely to do the action: when it comes to buying your products, missing out a call to action eats directly into your profits.
6) Create a blog
You may think that all your site needs are product pages and a bit of info about your business, but you’d be wrong. A great website needs a blog, too.
Not only does great content give your visitors a way to connect with you and your business, but it also helps with your search rankings. The more pages that you have, the more opportunities there are for you to appear in search results, which means more visitors for your site.
Create great content on your blog and start attracting more people to your site!
7) Keep optimizing your site
Once you’ve got your site made, you need to keep thinking of new ways to improve it. Google’s algorithm is constantly changing, and there are always new features that you can include to improve the user experience.
While it can be tricky to optimize your site perfectly, especially if you don’t have much experience in this area, there are many things you can do to make it a little easier.
One of the main ones is to get in contact with an SEO company that you can trust, and who can show you exactly how you might be able to improve your site’s optimization. You’ll probably come away from that with a much better experience and understanding of how to do this, leading to a significantly more successful website on the whole.
Experts like those at Decibel can help you find new areas to improve, and, in turn, attract more customers.
Create an incredible small business website
We hope that this guide has been helpful and you now feel ready to create a small business website! Put our tips into play and your site will attract scores of visitors and generate more business for your company.
Do you want to read more great business articles like this? Then check out the rest of our blog!
