10 Ways to Improve your Small Business Website

Starting your small business web design process requires you to follow some key points. Here they are.

Size Matters

The need for a big site is only for businesses that tender to national demographic or to the international audience. You’re building a website for your small business, so take that into account and proceed one step at a time. In other words, create a small site with only the needed information about your business. Big sites tend to eat up bandwidth and increase loading times that’s why you should avoid them. Studies proved that viewers only need about 5 seconds to decide whether they want to enter a site or not and increased loading times will surely make them shift their opinions on the latter.

Simplicity is Key

Designing a website can be fun, but too much can be deadly for your business. Nowadays, it’s more important to create a site with minimalist designs which only features the things that the viewers want without the added “glitters”. So refrain from using animated GIFs and badly paired color schemes that will only irritate the viewers eyes - that’s the last thing you want them to experience when they visit it.

Accessibility

Did you know that mobile search has finally surpassed desktop search? If you didn’t, then it’s about time that you do so. Then you’ll be able to arrive at the same conclusion as the other website owners - website access are not limited to desktop PCs. Your small business web design should include enabling your website to optimized for mobile access as well.

Of course, if you’re making your site mobile friendly, you should be able to make it browser friendly as well. Viewers get easily turned off by sites that would force them to use a browser they don’t use just so they could access your site.

No Auto-Play, Please

Sites that automatically plays a video about someone talking about something is not a site that most would like - it’s a site that one would likely avoid. And not adding an option to stop it or mute would make it even worse. Try putting yourself on their shoes - would you really want someone in the background talking about something that you don’t even care about?

No? Well, your viewers feel the same way.

Easier Transaction Processes

Online shopping is not uncommon these days and if you’ve built your site like this then it’s important for you to know this - your viewers came to your site to buy something your business provides and nothing else. It’s your job to make sure the site won’t hinder them from doing so by making sure transactions are quick and easier. And when they’re about to buy something, refrain from putting up popout messages, asking them to answer certain survey questions or subscription emails and the like - you’re making your job of converting your traffic into profit harder with that.

Google + Local

Though this technically doesn’t apply to your small business web design, this is one very important factor in the online exposure of your small business. Google is the leading search provider for many years now, and that’s not about to change anytime soon. For that reason, businesses, both big and small, both follow Google’s guidelines in order to gain a higher ranking on their particular search queries. You should do that too.

For small businesses, having a Google + Local Business page is a necessity. That’s because, by creating one, you’re making Google index your business on their directories and making it more probable to show up on local searches - it also shows up on their map packs as well. So make sure you create one and fill up all the details.

Customer Reviews

Reviews are something that you can’t do yourself, however, you can always encourage your viewers to do so. When they are finished tending to your products or services, you can ask them to write a review on your Google Business page or on your site, if you’ve provided one. Third party reviews are essential to businesses as they give an unbiased look on the services/products you provided. That means you need to earn it through great customer service as that’s the only way they’re giving you a positive review.

Links

Organic links has always been the main ingredient to a successful SEO strategy. As such, it’s also important that you gather these for your site. There are various ways of gaining links from local organizations found in your area - like joining events and such. In a nutshell, what you really need to do is to go out of your way and meet with the right people.

NAP and Citations

For every small business, NAP and citations are also one of the key points in increasing your exposure locally. NAP stands for your business name, address and phone number - these important information should be exact and in that order. What you need to do is to list those information down on various local directories like Yelp, Yahoo and Bing.

Always remember that when doing local listings, consistency with NAP is key. Failure to do so would result in negative effects for your site’s local SEO.

Consistent Content

Finally, let’s go back to your site. What it needs now is content. You need to drive your traffic constantly to your site and you can do that by constantly updating its content. Your viewers will enjoy visiting your site again if they will always be treated to fresh new things about your products and services and it’s also a great way of increasing your overall SEO.

Afterword

The success of your online business campaign relies heavily to how your website is created and the other things around it. So try to make sure you built it to work the way you want it to work.