Your small business website is your first impression. In fact, 72% of consumers search for a business online before visiting a brick-and-mortar location.
You want to make a good first impression everywhere else — and that means paying close attention to your small business website.
Unfortunately, many business owners want to improve their websites, but resources are scarce. They also don’t know where to start. Plus, digital marketing can feel intimidating, especially if it’s not your area of expertise.
Sound familiar?
You’re not alone. The good news is you can create an effective small business website that reels in clients. And it may not take as much effort as you think. Take a look at our guide to the best small business website tips. These are 75 easy-to-do tips that can bring your website to the next level — and create winning results.
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The 3 Biggest Benefits To Improving Your Small Business Website Design
1. A great small website can bring in new clients.
Did you know 4 out of 5 consumers rely on Google to find location information? Whether you’re a cosmetologist or a contractor, chances are, your clients are searching for you online. If you’re not there, you’re nowhere to be found.
Sure, you may get word-of-mouth referrals, but what happens if a client has a bad experience? What if you hit a slow season? Launching a stellar website can expand your marketing and help you find new clients beyond your inner circle.
2. It’s cheaper than other forms of marketing.
Still paying premium for print brochures and direct mail marketing? First, evaluate how much you’re getting out of these touchpoints. If they work for you, great. But if you’re unsure, you may want to switch to digital marketing.
It’s not free, but digital marketing tends to cost less than traditional print marketing. For example, it can cost between $2,000 and $160,000 or more to run a print ad (and that’s conservative).
Meanwhile, you can allocate a much smaller budget for digital advertising and see a larger return on your investment. Google says you can get $8 back for every $1 spent on their pay-per-click advertising!
If you do a quick cost-benefit analysis, it’s easy to see why many small business owners turn to digital marketing first.
3. You can see results quickly.
With print marketing, it can be tough to know what worked and what didn’t. You may never know who opened your mailer and who threw it away. Digital marketing, on the other hand, is completely different.
You can trust Google Analytics and other software programs to measure:
- Your total number of website visitors
- The percentage of new versus returning visitors
- How many people left your site after viewing one web page (bounce rate)
- Your top content (what content people are reading most)
- How people are finding your website
- Which keywords are performing best
- And much more
Not only can you see if your marketing programs work, but you also can learn more about your target audience. I always find it fascinating to see what keywords and phrases perform best. It’s a little bit of insight into how my target clients think.
The 7 Key Areas Where You Can Improve Your Small Business Website
You can see the full list in our downloadable guide (recommended). But if you’re short on time, here are the key areas of website design you should focus on. When you download our free guide, you’ll get 75 of the best practices for improving your website in each of these areas:
- Website strategy
- Website design
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Content strategy and writing
- How to reduce your risk
- Technical tips
- Software and tools
- Measuring your website
1. Website strategy.
You have a business strategy, a financial strategy, and a product strategy. But did you know you need a website strategy too? That’s right — small business websites shouldn’t be built ad hoc. It’s important to know your target clients and build a site to address their needs — from search to content to design.
2. Search engine optimization (SEO).
97% of people learn about local businesses online more than anywhere else. And nearly half of all Google searches (46%) are for local information.
Clearly, it’s important to prioritize your search engine optimization strategy. If you hit the right keywords and structure your site correctly, you can bring clients to you organically, instead of paying money for advertising.
3. Content strategy and writing.
Ever heard the phrase “content is king?” Bill Gates coined it years ago when he predicted the importance of valuable content on the internet. Turns out, he was right. Your website’s content has the power to convert leads into clients — or turn them away. You’ll want to make sure your site offers high-quality content that engages your readers.
4. Reducing your risk.
Today it’s easy to get sued, particularly if you unknowingly miss a legal guideline on the web. To protect yourself, secure business insurance first. Then get to know some of the most important legal guidelines for digital marketing. These include privacy and protection, copyright infringement laws, and more.
5. Technical tips.
So you’re not a professional coder, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have technical know-how. Understanding the technical side can help you build your small business website, or hire a developer to do the work for you.
For example, you should know about page speed, responsive sites, and how to ensure your website displays correctly on multiple devices.
6. Software and tools.
Gone are the days when, to build a website, you needed to know code. Today, anyone can design and launch their own site using a website-builder like SquareSpace, Wix.com, or WordPress.
But before you dive in and start designing, get to know how to use these programs first. In our guide, we’ll cover tips for choosing a site builder and when you should outsource the work.
7. Measuring your small business website.
The best part of digital marketing is the ability to measure its success. You can learn what works and where you need to make improvements.
Our guide covers tips for measuring website design, including specific metrics that can tell you how your site is performing. Plus, learn how to create a solid measurement dashboard and make changes based on what you learn.
Ready To Get Started? Don’t Wait!
Download our FREE guide today and get started on building a small business website that brings customers stampeding through your (virtual) doors.
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