Are you ready to take your small business website up a notch? When it comes to small business marketing, a great website can be one of the most effective and cost-efficient marketing channels out there. Your business website is a prime marketing opportunity. Follow these 7 tips to make the most of it.
1. Keep your website design simple, fresh, and unique.
As the first thing potential customers see when they visit your website, the homepage is the most important part of a small business’s Website design. Make sure your site homepage answers the critical questions new visitors will be asking, including who you are, what your business is, and what can they do on your website. Consider the impression you want to make and the message you want to communicate with your customers and potential customers.
2. Make your text bite-sized.
One of the best things you can do to make your site more effective is to break down your text into short one or two-sentence snippets. Keeping the text brief makes it easy to read. The trick is not to overload your homepage, which can be distracting and confusing for customers. Keep it to no more than 120 words of text. Once your text is bite-sized, organize and label it with descriptive titles or headlines to help users quickly scan the page for information that is interesting or relevant to them.
3. Make your site easily accessible.
Consider that people with certain disabilities (such as color blindness) will visit your site, and plan your design so that they, too, can learn about your products and services. Also, consider how people with slower Internet connections will view your site and what you can do to improve their experience.
4. Organize your website to provide a great user experience.
Keep in mind that when your prospective customers visit your site, they’re typically looking for specific information. They’re rarely going to read entire pages, and most people will skim pages quickly. A well-structured site that presents information in an orderly and organized way will be much more successful than one that appears chaotic or that is not intuitively arranged.
5. Test it on the potential customer base.
Show your website to a few would-be customers and get their feedback. Have a few specific questions ready like:
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What is your first impression of this site?
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What does this company do?
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What problem can this company solve for you?
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What makes this company better than other alternatives?
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What next step can you take to work with this company?
The purpose is to get honest feedback on how well your website communicates, so don’t ask leading questions. If possible, test it on people who don’t know that you are working on the website. Otherwise, they may hold back to avoid offending you.
6. Optimize your website for laptops, tablets, and mobile phone users.
Avoid designing pages for a large monitor size or pages that use more complex features such as Flash animation or navigation. (Flash isn’t supported on the Apple devices.) Keep it simple and clean so your site is optimal for any device a visitor might be using.
7. Don’t forget to do search engine optimization (SEO).
SEO is a highly specialized field and requires a substantial investment of time to learn. But, SEO campaigns can provide great leverage to small businesses and, as a result, should not be ignored. There are literally thousands of qualified professionals who can help you with this, and executing your SEO strategy well will have a huge impact on your site’s success.
As you make improvements to your site, it’s important to remember that a website is never really “DONE.” It’s not a one-time creation that you build and publish and walk away from. It should grow and change with you as your business evolves.
What next step are you taking to improve your website? Also, please Contact Us know if you have any questions or need any help to improve your website design