About 71% of businesses have a website. Not many businesses realize their website’s design and development can impact their success, though. In fact, about 40% of visitors will stop interacting with a poorly designed site.
Another 38.5% of consumers will judge your businesses based on a single glance at your website. You could lose potential customers as a result.
Meanwhile, poor user experiences drive nearly 50% of consumers to choose one of your competitors instead. Conversions can drop by up to 20% for every second of site load time, too.
About one in five businesses say their main website issue is low traffic as well.
Read on to discover how to create a website for small business success and how to generate website traffic. With these tips, you can use your small business website as an effective marketing tool. You can educate and engage your audience before turning visitors into paying customers.
Discover how to improve your online presence and set your business up for success with these tips today!
How to Create an Effective Website
It’s important to learn how to create an effective small business website. Your website will operate as the backbone of your digital marketing strategy. Many of your marketing campaigns will rely on a fast, user-friendly website, too.
Use these tips to create a website for small business success.
- Establish Goals
Before you start designing your website, take a moment to consider your goals. Otherwise, you might fail to create a website that accomplishes those goals. You could waste valuable time and energy as a result.
As you determine each goal you want to work toward, make sure they’re SMART.
Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results-Driven, and Timely goals are easy to track. They’re more precise, too. Establishing SMART goals will keep every member of your team on the same page.
Your goals might involve:
- Expanding your online presence
- Building brand awareness and recognition
- Improving search engine rankings
- Establishing yourself as a thought leader
- Proving your credibility
- Building brand trust and loyalty
- Generating leads and sales
- Improving your ROI
Determine how you’ll accomplish each goal. For example, you might want to use video content to establish your credibility. Perhaps you want to use lead magnets to generate leads.
Your goals will determine what you’ll need to include throughout your small business website.
- Understanding Your Audience
Don’t rush to start designing yet! You don’t want to make assumptions as you create a website for small business marketing. Instead, take the time to gather research.
Start by learning as much as you can about your target audience. If necessary, segment your broad audience into buyer personas. You can specify personas based on psychographics and demographics.
For example, you might want to group consumers based on:
- Age
- Location
- Education
- Gender
- Marital status
- Buying behaviors
- Interests
- Hobbies
- Pain points
- Household income
Perhaps you want to separate your products based on what consumers can afford. Perhaps you have styles for different genders. Understanding and segmenting your audience will help you personalize your website.
Personalization can help you appeal to consumers based on distinct wants and needs.
In fact, about 74% of people get annoyed when website content doesn’t appeal to their interest. Nearly half won’t spend time with branded content that’s irrelevant to their interests. Another 80% are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalized experiences.
In fact, personalization could deliver eight times the ROI on your marketing spend.
- Gather Inspiration
Take a look at your competitors’ websites. What stands out? Make note of the design elements that pique your interest.
Gathering inspiration can help you make more informed decisions regarding your site. It could help you avoid copying your competitors, too.
After all, you’ll want to distinguish yourself. Take the time to consider your distinct value proposition. Highlight the value only you can offer customers across your small business website.
Focusing on your value could help you attract more customers to your business.
If you don’t stand out, however, you’ll continue to fade into the background. You could struggle to expand your online presence as a result.
- Get a Domain
Take the time to invest in a custom domain name. Make sure it’s short, sweet, and suits your brand. Choose a domain that’s easy to remember and unique as well.
Try to avoid creating a domain that uses a hyphen.
Once you purchase your domain, choose a website builder and start designing your new website.
- Organize Your Pages
As you create a website for small business marketing success, make sure to organize your pages. The essential pages you’ll need include a:
- Home page
- Blog
- About us page
- Service or product page
- Contact page
Try to avoid creating too many pages. Otherwise, consumers might not know where to look. Keeping them focused on these core pages could improve the user experience.
Once you create these essential pages, create your navigation bar. Make sure your website is easy to navigate. If you have additional pages, focus on adding the most important pages to the navigation.
Add an eye-catching button to the navigation bar that encourages people to contact you.
- Add Eye-Catching Imagery
As you work on designing your new small business website, make sure to add eye-catching images. Images can keep visitors interested and engaged.
Try to avoid using stock photography, though. Stock images won’t communicate your brand. Consumers might struggle to remember your business if you’re not using unique imagery.
Consider maintaining brand consistency across your site, too. Maintaining brand consistency will help foster awareness and recognition. Otherwise, consumers won’t recall your brand.
If they remember your brand, they might have an easier time recognizing your marketing materials.
- Consider the UX
As you work on your small business website, make sure to prioritize creating a positive user experience (UX).
A better UX could yield conversion rates of up to 400%. Otherwise, 88% of shoppers won’t return after a bad experience on your site.
Make sure your site is fast and mobile-optimized. Consider Google’s Core Web Vitals to improve the UX as well.
If you’re struggling with your website design and development, consider working with an experienced digital marketing agency. They can set you up for success.
- Create Conversion Opportunities
Make sure to add multiple conversion opportunities to your site. Start with a call-to-action button in the navigation bar. Then, add buttons above the fold for key pages across your site.
Make sure your forms are short and easy to complete. Otherwise, people might give up halfway.
You can also create a newsletter subscription form onto your site. Create a lead magnet or incentive to encourage people to subscribe.
How to Generate More Traffic
Once your small business website is up and running, you’ll need to find ways to generate website traffic. Here are a few effective digital marketing strategies that can help.
- Start Blogging
Use your audience research to determine what your customers are looking for when they complete a Google search. What keywords are relevant to your product or service? What questions are they asking?
Start creating helpful, informative blog content that answers their questions.
Creating fresh content can help you continue generating fresh website traffic. If your content is stale, however, people won’t return.
- Use Search Engine Optimization
Once you’ve created fresh content for your blog, use search engine optimization (SEO). SEO can help boost your organic rankings. Your content might appear during a search.
Nearly 70% of experiences online start with search engines. Over 50% of all website traffic starts with an organic search, too. In fact, SEO drives 1,000% more traffic than organic social media.
Consider working with an experienced SEO agency to boost your rankings. Higher rankings will improve your online rankings and help you generate website traffic.
- Create Eye-Catching PPC Ads
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising can also boost your online presence. Create ads that will appear on social media platforms and search engines. You can target consumers based on keywords or location.
- Stay Social
As you begin creating blog content, share it! Share your posts on social media to boost your online presence.
As people click on the links to your posts, you’ll generate more website traffic. Your organic rankings could rise, helping you generate even more traffic in the future.
- Request Reviews
Ask your customers to post their reviews on your Google My Business listing. Positive reviews will boost your reputation. Local SEO could help improve your search engine rankings, too.
You’ll have an easier time appearing in front of local consumers as your local SEO rankings rise.
- Generate Return Traffic
Consider using remarketing or email marketing to bring previous website visitors back to your site.
Remarketing ads are digital ads that can appear in front of previous visitors. You can even personalize the ads by showing them the products they explored.
Email marketing will help you nurture your leads, too. Then, you’ll have an easier time remaining top of mind.
How to Create a Website for Small Business Success: Your Guide to Growing Your Business
Don’t miss the chance to boost your online presence or generate more leads. Instead, learn how to create a website for small business success. Then, use these digital marketing strategies to generate website traffic with ease.
Set your business up for growth with these tips today.
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