It's absolutely essential for all small businesses these days to have a strong and dynamic web presence. In today's increasingly competitive digital age, the first thing an interested party is going to do before checking out your business is to Google it and visit your website. If your SMB doesn't have a website at all, your company will look less professional and ends up leaving a lot of money on the table.
If you do have a website and it is outdated or unresponsive on certain devices, that can severely damage your business brand. Imagine having a marketing or technology company with a website that looks like it's from the dot-com bubble era. You would lose nearly all credibility immediately and your small business may not survive.
So now that it's been established how imperative it is to have a strong website, it is time to build your business website! With a smart website design strategy, you can be assured that your website will provide a great first impression for your company. Here are some of the key points to keep in mind when developing your successful business website:
Fully Responsive & Optimized For Mobile Devices
More than half of all searches and website traffic now take place on mobile devices over desktop computers. This staggering stat became a reality over the past couple of years and it has had a major impact on the web developer world. Mobile websites aren't an option any longer, they are a requirement. All websites need to be fully responsive for all smartphones, tablets, desktops and browsers or you'll end up losing customers. Fully responsive blogs and websites are key because then you really only have to edit a single website for it to take effect on both desktop and mobile. Websites that fail to be mobile-friendly get absolutely buried by Google and other search engines in search results.
Search Engine Optimization Strategy
You can have the greatest website in the world, but it won't matter if nobody can find it. Aside from advertising options like social media marketing and email marketing, that's where search engine optimization (SEO) really comes into play. You need to make sure that your website is designed with optimal Google search results in mind to generate substantial organic traffic. That means your site needs optimized keywords, text, images, videos, links, and user experience among countless other factors. There are hundreds of Google ranking factors so you need to try and be as compliant as possible. Paid traffic can be very expensive, so you want to ensure that your site can provide you with free traffic for years to come.
Build Up Subscribership
To maximize the effectiveness of your website, it's essential that you build a segmented email list of subscribers and leads. The more blog posts, free downloads, product trials, and converting landing pages that you have, the larger your subscribership will be.
Another option to use in addition to building an email list is to allow your site to send out website notifications. When someone visits your website they will have the automatic option of receiving new notifications. If they opt in, you will have a big source of steady traffic to new pages and blog posts.
Simple User Interface
A small business website can become a detriment if it takes a lot of time, money, or expertise to make updates. Websites should be saving you time and money, not devouring it. You need to be able to make edits or improvements in a matter of minutes or hours, not days or weeks. This applies to product sales, specials, holiday hours, blog posts, inventory or schedules just to name a few considerations. That flexibility is key, and without it you are asking for trouble.
Imagine that you found a major typo on your website (a decimal point in the wrong place let's say) or the wrong product listing and it ended up costing you thousands of dollars because you couldn't change it in time. Or maybe you worked for hours on a compelling blog post that you know will help thousands of readers (including marketing influencers) and convert hundreds of visitors into leads or customers. Your website needs to be able to make agile updates.
Hosting Security
It's very important to have a secure host for your website to prevent it from getting hacked, and to back up all of your information if needed. You don't want to leave your website in the hands of just any host after putting in all of that time, effort, and money. Cyber-security and data protection are now a top priority after all of the highly publicized hacks at top corporations. And while you're at it, make sure your website has a valid SSL Certificate for the good of you and your visitors.
Building a business website and strengthening your online presence is a major factor in success these days. Don't try and do it yourself or just hire the cheapest option, you get what you pay for! Best of luck building that business brand online!
I hope you enjoyed this blog post about why your SMB needs a powerful web presence to be successful in the digital age.
Interested in more articles about small business online marketing?
Read Related Resources:
• Guide To Monetize Your Websites And Blogs
• How A Small Business Grows Brand Awareness Online
More Bootstrap Business Blog Below