As one of the only elements of your marketing that you truly own, and with a pressure for it to be your online shop window, your website has a huge jo
As one of the only elements of your marketing that you truly own, and with a pressure for it to be your online shop window, your website has a huge job to do. It can be the thing that really sells your goods or services to your ideal customer, and as a small business, you can’t afford for it not to be working hard for you. In this article, we’ll explore what you can do for your small businesses’ website so make sure it’s set up for success…
An optimised design
These days, over half of all web browsing is done on a mobile device. In fact, this has been reported to be as much as 60%. Therefore, if your site is not optimised to respond to the varying screen sizes of whatever device your user is using, you’re likely to lose them not just as a website user, but, crucially, as a customer too. Google also operates on a ‘mobile-first’ basis, which means your search engine rankings could be impacted by a failure to prioritise your mobile users.
Clear branding
A clear and cohesive brand should be recognisable from the very first moment that a user lands on your site, instantly lodging you in their heads as a professional outfit, and therefore becoming instantly recognisable and synonymous with the product or service you offer. Branding extends beyond your colours and logo to fonts, imagery, shapes and taglines; consistency is key, as is updating your branding every so often to keep your marketing current.
Professional images
Imagery is an area on which you can skimp, but we strongly suggest that you consider investing in it; whether you’re a service-based business or one that offers physical products, the images you use on your website can make or break a customer’s decision. Users can spot amateur photography a mile away, so having a professional handle your imagery ensures that you look as if you mean business and continue the cohesion of your branding.
Good website content
As important as the visuals are, bad content can still let you down, even if your design and branding is on point. Your website content should not only reflect your brand’s values, but also include helpful content for your user that strikes you apart as a business that really understands their pain points, and clear calls to action that explain what to do next. Your website’s content also has a big part to play in where your website appears on search engine result’s pages, so it’s not an element of your site to be ignored.
Excellent UX
UX stands for ‘user experience’, and, as you may have guessed, it refers to the overall experience that someone landing on your site has. Small niggles like unclear navigation, pages that are slow to load, or links that lead nowhere can soon turn a user off from your site, leaving them to seek alternatives from a competitor, so it’s in your interest to make sure the journey through your site is smooth and flowing.
SEO as a priority
Your website can look good, with perfect branding and images, and web content that perfectly reflects what you do, but there’s barely any point in it if nobody can find it. That’s why you need to optimise your site to be picked up by search engines, namely Google, who need to be able to discover your site and understand what searches it would be relevant to include it in.
This means that you should include relevant keywords in your content, correctly use header tags, upload schema, and organically earn links back to your website from reputable websites – these are just a few of the elements of SEO that you should be on top of.
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