10 Tips For Creating A Great Small Business Website
Nowadays having a comprehensive, professional website is essential for any new or even existing business. But getting started can often be overwhelming and even intimidating. As a professional Web development company that has built 100’s of websites for businesses we know what it takes to build effective, engaging, and purpose driven websites.
Whether you looking to start from scratch or improve on your existing site, here are 10 key tips to help you get the ball rolling.
Setting a Clear Goal
Every business site is different, simply being because every business has different goals in terms of there digital presence and what there setting out to achieve through it. For example if you want your website to be a portal to sell tangible products, then it should be designed to drive results for that specific purpose, or if your website is to be used to generate leads and inquiry’s, you have to build it to drive those specific actions.
Display Purposeful Content
Before you get started building your website, you as the business owner should at least create, at least in basic terms, their own content. Even if your planning on hiring a professional copywriter to polish your content its important you get the right message out there to your customers.
Ensure your content is not to long winded, users don’t often spend a lot of time reading through pages, utilising point form and subheadings is extremely effective. Ensure the problems your solving the needs your business meets are clearly displayed.
To many business owners focus on what they do, instead of what benefit they provide the client, always remember your customers are only concerned with “what’s in it for me”.
Utilise Call to Actions
A (CTA) call to actions is a prompt on a website that instructs the visitor to take a further specific action. Some typical call to action phrases are, “Find out more”, “Contact us today!”, “Sign Up”, or “Buy now”, and usually will take the form of a button or link.
A call to action will make it clear to your customers on what to do next and removes any friction in moving them down the sales funnel. A common overlooked place for CTA’s is your blog posts, if there is no clear action or step to take at the end of reading your post, your customers are likely to leave without completing any further tasks on your website.
In a nutshell all your site content should be a stepping stone to lead the customer to the next step in the buying process, so insure your implementing a call to action at each stage to direct your users forward.
Purchase Reliable and Scalable hosting and management.
A website hosting provider is a company that offers the services and technology necessary to be viewed live on the internet. Hosting costs can be anywhere from $5 – $200 plus depending on what size and support you need for your website.
Many companies, our team included offer hosting along with additional support, such as monthly content changes and more in depth management of your website, allowing you to free up your time to focus on the key aspects of your business.
Ensure that the hosting company you choose to go with has efficient server security and allows for scaling and upgrading of the hosting plan, in the case you need extra support or a larger server space.
Avoid free themes
When creating your first site, it may seem viable and easy to choose a free theme for your website, but in the long game it can be potentially quite detrimental.
Free themes are usually free as they offer the user very little support to no support, no updates, and in many cases security issues along with SEO related issues. Additionally, having a mobile responsive website is essential, and many free themes inhibit that ability.
Making money online requires investment, and even a small investment into a quality theme with good and plentiful review will save a lot of pain and stress down the track. Websites like Envato, offer a huge selection of themes, along with reviews, download rates, and the ability to check how often they are being update.
Use the best Content Management System For Your Needs
A content management system (CMS) is a program that allows users to manage all there digital content (your website) in one place. A good CMS will be user friendly and allow you to easily navigate and maintain your site as needed.
When choosing a CMS its important you go with one that is best suited to you and your needs, consider user friendliness, budget, and pliancy.
Below are some Popular options each with there own benefits.
- WordPress “Our top choice”
- Joomla
- Wix
- Squarespace
- Magneto
Be Personable
Ideally you want customers to feel as connected to your business as possible, and your website is the ultimate platform to tell your story. Many small business owners want to project the image of the company being big, but that is not necessarily always the most effective strategy.
It’s a great idea to add your company’s story to your site, information about your team, your journey so far and even success stories with past clients. Another great tip is to add an image of the founder or the whole team, its good to show customers that there are real people ready to work with them and for them.
Make Contact a Breeze.
Being Easily contactable and have a great communication and support system in place may be one of the most crucial aspects of your website. Your contact information should be displayed and be easily accessible to your customers.
Contact Forms are essential if you wish to present the best support to your clients, many people may not have access to their email or phone at the time, so offering them a way to still be able to message you is ideal, this will help you avoid people navigating away from the site without contacting you.
Having a live chat feature on your site is also a great way to provide quick feedback and support to your site’s users, we have listed 5 below:
- Crisp
- Drift
- Olark
- Hubspot live chat
- Clickdesk
Ensure your site is Mobile Friendly
Ensuring your website is mobile friendly is a must, it shows your potential customers that you’re a relevant and credible business. 52% of all website traffic is generated from mobile devices, and 60% of consumers say that they are more likely to purchase of a mobile friendly website.
Having a mobile friendly site plays a major role in your SEO, google for example prioritises sites displayed in the search that are mobile friendly.
When designing your site for mobile, ensure your buttons are large enough to be clicked on a mobile device, and that site navigation and layout are seamless.
Regularly Create And Publish New And creative Content
Keeping your sites content fresh and of quality will pay a major part in your search engine optimisation (SEO), making it important for your to create a plan or at minimum a set schedule for uploading and creating new content on your website.
If you want to not only rank highly on search engines, but also keep customers coming back again and again, taking your sites content seriously is a must. Things like regular weekly blog posts are a good place to get started, and insure they are linked across other sites that drive traffic to yours. Another great option is customer testimonials as they create trust and engagement with your users.
Conclusion.
Creating and managing a website can be challenging, and in many cases it is a learn as you go process, and we hope the above tips get you on your way to running a profitable and effective site.
Our team at Calibre Digital have created hundreds of websites for our clients and can offer ongoing support and management for your site. So if you have questions or would like a free quote, feel free to contact us anytime.
