It is important for an entrepreneur to understand the benefits of technology in a small business. Polls show small business owners lag behind in using modern technology, while successful entrepreneurs report significant business benefits using modern technology.
Website: the face of your business
It’s surprising to know that many small businesses don’t have websites. This is a threat that kills a company’s visibility. A website is the most effective marketing tool available to any company. This allows you to quickly find your business. So, in this digital world, a website is essential for entrepreneurs or small businesses. New or returning customers tend to visit a business page naturally. They underestimate your business for being offline. Online business or physical store, you need a suitable platform to promote your business. A website can reflect your business goals along with promoting products and services. Small businesses today need an effective, mobile-friendly website, significant social media presence and listings, and a clear plan for communicating with their customers online.
It is a myth that a website is expensive and intended for large corporate organizations. A website is not an expensive thing. Web development and web design are so popular nowadays. At least not all of them. Don’t be judgmental by looking at sites with hundreds of web pages and heavy graphics. You can go to a perfect website with few pages and a simple interface. One of the benefits of a website is that the size of your company doesn’t really matter.
Determine the main purpose of your website
Before you can even start building your own small business website, you need to figure out exactly what kind of website you want! There are two main types of small business websites. A static website, often known as a brochure website, merely gives information about your company and the products and services it provides.
While it may provide interactive features such as contact forms and email subscriptions, this type of site is not typically used to actually sell or receive payment for your products or services.
If you are a retailer or service provider, you might want to consider selling your products and even services on your website. This type of website is commonly referred to as e-commerce sites. In order to enable your customers to pay online, you will need to use an external service to receive payments, which we will talk about a little later in this post.
Even if you’re in the service business, you still need to include a compelling call to action (CTA) on your small business website. People need to know what you are going to do. The main goal of your website is to attract more consumers or clients for your small business. This should be defined right from the start and shape the structure of your website.
Think about the specific user experience you are going to provide. Whatever the main purpose of your website, users should easily achieve it.
Whether you’re looking to create a new website or evaluate your current online storefront, here are the essential elements that every great website requires.
-
Good domain name
Keep your domain name easy to remember, preferably short, and it’s an added bonus if you can specify your primary service area. For instance, melbourneflorist.com.au is basic yet effective, and it covers the majority of the information you need about a page load. Of course, many domain names are already taken and companies are looking for innovative alternatives like emoji domains to get noticed. To find out if your preferred domain is available, use our domain registry tool.
-
Mobile-friendly design.
Mobile devices account for more than half of all web traffic. If your site is not mobile optimized, you will lose half of your audience from the start.
-
Convenient functions.
The best websites help users find exactly what they are looking for in a fun way. They have clear navigation bars across the different pages of the site, lots of images to make it interesting, and the fonts are easy to read.
-
Engaging content.
The more information you have on your website, the more users will know about your business. This is kind of an SEO thing. Every website should have 4 main pages – a home page, a page about us, services/products, and a contact page. Each of them should include engaging and useful content to tell the user everything about your business, what you do and why you do it.
-
Call to action on every page.
The best way to get people to interact with your site is to tell them to do it. A short, clear call to action on each page will remind users that the help they need is just one click away. It can be as simple as “Call us today” or “Find out more,” but it should be referenced often enough to give users an incentive to take the next step in their purchase.
