Whether you are a freelance photographer or someone who owns a hardware store, or if you have any other type of a small business, a great website is essential for your company to triumph. Many web designers, who have worked on building or let’s say marketing over 100’s of small business websites, will know that it takes effort to create amazing and definitely engaging business websites.
If you are looking to build a website for a new startup or make the current site that you are using more effective, then here are 7 key steps to consider while getting started and helping your website for a small business compete efficiently in the online marketplace.
1. Have a strong domain name
Your domain name, which also serves as your website address, is mostly the point of entry to your site. Therefore, it is imperative that it makes a decent impression for the purpose of usability, and also for the search engine optimization i.e. SEO.
Here are some tips to help you come up with the ideal domain name;
Make sure that it is convenient to spellMake sure not to use made-up, slang, jargons, or extremely obscure words. Otherwise, it just gets too complicated.Try and keep the domain name as precise or short as possibleObviously the shorter it is, the easier it will be to remember and then type correctly.Use the accurate extension of the domainTry to make it more of a .com domain name as opposed to .co, .net, etc. another extension, such as .edu, .gov or .org is more appropriate.Avoid numbers and hyphensNumbers and hyphens make domain names less elegant or memorable than word-only urls and may be misunderstood when vocalizing the domain name.2. Display a clear and prominent description of your business
It is essential to let people know who you are and what is it that you do right away. You need to make sure that the main homepage banner, which is also known as the “hero image”, and all other page banners are great visual representations of the services that you are providing. Also ensure that you have an opening text blurb near the top of the page that explains who you are and what you do exactly. Moreover, make sure that both your footer and main navigation menus have an “About Us” page link that is easily reachable so that people can click on them and read more about your business in detail and depth.
3. Develop the best content management system that you can
A content management system is basically a software program or let’s just say it is an application that you can use to generate and manage any digital content. A good Content Management System will assist you in maintaining your site, and you will not need much technical knowledge to use it. You should choose a Content Management System that is designed only for your unique needs. A variety of different systems are used for various reasons, such as extensibility, user-friendliness and also budget. The resources involved in maintaining a good content management system should be included when you consider how much a website should cost.
4. Choose a good e-commerce platform
If you don’t already sell anything online then you may want to consider doing so because e-commerce is the new big thing and thus could potentially increase your profits. If you do however plan on selling goods and/or your services through the website that you have developed, then you will need the accurate technology to do so. So basically if you decide that you want to allow your users to financially transact with you online, then you will need to pick out the right platform for your business model.
These days, the immense user base in prominent social media platforms like Instagram has made it an attractive opportunity to maintain active pages on these platforms too. If that’s something you think your business can benefit from, it’s definitely worth a shot. Check out this article for more information on the subject.
5. Create an exciting, unforgettable, and attractive website user interface
You need to make sure that your small business website interface leaves a constructive impression that drives fruitful results. You can do so by various means however, the following are some of the suggestions you can make use of.
You can use graphics that are beautiful, eye-catching and in easy to read fonts styles and size.Ensure that your graphics are compacted and are optimized for fast loading of whatever you have put up because if your website is sluggish, the search engines like Google will penalize your ranking.Always conduct a research on the competition to see how they have designed, planned and optimized their websites; try to implement similar and/ or even better components that will work for your small business website.Research your target audience as well, it is very essential to do so in order to see what they require from your site and make it easy for them to achieve it.6. Frequently create and publish quality content
Content quantity and freshness are both very significant to search engines, so, therefore, it is essential that you create a good plan to publish articles or blog posts on your site that are of amazing quality and even put them on external sites that will eventually link to your site. Keep in mind that if you want to rank high in search engine results you will have to update and maintain your website with relevant content as frequently as possible. Asking for recommendations from your customers and then publishing them on your website is another great way to stay up to date.
7. Always implement a website maintenance plan
A website can’t just be created and then put to rest so it goes stale. In order to have a prosperous website, you need to make sure it is always properly maintained. At all times keep a check on any updates required or anything that needs to be added or removed.
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