If you are looking ahead to get your startup online, here in this article you will get to see 9 key points to keep in mind and get your small business website look effective in an online marketplace.
It doesn’t matter what business you own; being an owner, you need to build a good website for the proper branding of your business. A good looking website will make your small business effective. So, if you run a small business or are planning to start a new one, take the initiative to go for good website development.
According to the study by ironpaper.com, here is the graphical representation of small businesses relying on the website for their brand marketing. Have a quick look at the below-given image:
92% of small businesses think having a website is an effective digital marketing tactic, and 89% think SEO helps as well (Statistica). These two combined (i.e., having an SEO-optimized webpage) is key for SMBs.
Using proper keywords to target the right audience, having a dynamic user experience, and producing high-quality content regularly will drastically increase the number of leads coming in.
Now, it’s time to break the ice about the tips to make a small business website effective. Here, we will be introducing you to the most effective and valuable website building tips that strengthen the brand image of your small business.
7 Tips to Brand Up Your Small Business Website
Get a Good Domain Name
A domain name is the address of your website where the user visits and explores your website. That is why it is essential to keep the domain name attractive and straightforward to avoid creating problems while visiting your website. Here are some of the tips you can keep in mind while setting or choosing a domain name.
Could you keep it simple to spell?
Try to avoid complicated words and words having slang or something related to that.
Keep it too short to remember.
The domain name should be shorter so that users can remember it always.
Get an accurate domain extension.
Try to get the extension having .com instead of .net, .co, etc unless or until you want to keep it more specific like .gov, .edu, or .org.
Look for the right price.
It is a good idea to spend some time researching the best domain name for your business. If you are able to find a good domain name that is not available and is not active too, then you can reach out to the owner of the domain and see if they are interested in selling the domain.
Make a Good-looking Website
It is well known that a good-looking website always attracts users attention and retention. So, the first thing you should do is to plan for good-looking website development. According to a study by Adobe, it has been seen that 38 per cent of people stop engaging with a website if the content/layout is unattractive.
Here is a picture of a good and bad looking website. You can see how well this picture is proving this fact.
Implement the Best Content Management System
A content management system (CMS) is a software program or application which help create and manage digital content. A good CMS will help you maintain your site, and you don’t need much technical knowledge to use it.
A Content management system is also known as CMS, is software that is used to manage content. For example, your website looks practical and attractive if you implement a sound contingent management system. The best part of the content management system is that there is no need to use technical skills like coding.
According to the study by Ironpaper, Content marketing is still the top-rated digital marketing technique, but big data is coming up closely behind. For small businesses, it’s important to remember to write content that aligns with the buyer’s journey because, ultimately, that content will get prospects to convert. Given the usefulness of big data, it will be important that someone on that team become well-versed in analytics to maintain market competitiveness.
Drupal
Drupal is one of the oldest and most famous Content management systems that I would like to recommend. It is renowned for its qualities and benefits like flexibility, ease of use, and a large support community. Although it does not have many plugins, it is still more secure than WordPress, another CMS. Drupal has also run the White House website for years. As it is one of the most trusted and the oldest CMS, you can also go for Drupal website development if you plan to start a startup.
Make your Site Mobile Responsive
It is crucial to make your small business website highly mobile responsive because most people spend their time on mobile phones for their day to day activities. Let’s have a look at the study by statista.com,
According to a survey conducted in February 2021, nearly half of the respondents stated that, on average, they spent five to six hours on their phones daily, not including work-related smartphone use. A further 22 per cent of respondents said that they spent three to four hours on average on their phone daily. Just five per cent said they spent less than an hour a day on their smartphone.
Did you know that if potential customers visit your website and find any difficulty while navigating on a mobile device, there are chances that they will ditch your website and move towards the competitor?
Make it Easy to Find
Try to keep your domain name accessible by relating it almost to your company name so that people can find it easily. You have the opportunity to have multiple domains that point to the website. This means that you need to incorporate technical SEO best practices, keyword research, content marketing and paid advertising campaigns to drive traffic to your website.
Place Your Contact Information at the Right Place
You need to place the contact information at just the right place so that your customers can find it easy to call your sales team. For this, you are required to place the call to action button at the front of the eyes of the customers so that you can give an easy life to them.
In simple words, your contact information should be properly visible. Try to keep it on the top of the homepage so that visitors do not find any difficulty while searching for a phone number or address if they want to contact the business,” said David Brown, CEO of Web.com.
If your brand has social media pages, then you can link it with the website header or footer, where they can find contact information easily.
Keep Your Design Simple
Your website design should be neat and clean in a way that the fonts, colours, and GIFs should be properly implemented so that it does not irritate the eyes of the customers. These all things should be properly managed so that they can attract the customer’s attention.
Optimize Your Small Business Website for Search Engines
Always do an SEO practice to your small business website to the website’s rank in the search engine results pages. This optimization will help the users to reach your website easily while searching the required content. If you do SEO optimization of your website regularly, it will quickly reflect on the top of the results or near the top of the results with similar content. And yes, better website design for small businesses plays a vital role in your website to show up on search engine result pages.
SEO mainly consists of the following practices:
- Keyword research and implementation
- Optimal website code
- Fast loading speed
Final Words
I hope you got the essence of the article and how it is relevant and important to keep your website effective.
It is always a good idea to work with a stable and cost-effective website development company that can understand your needs and give you the best returns.
