What Every Small Business Should Be Doing with Its Website

Your website is the hub of your digital marketing activities. All of your efforts—your advertising, landing pages, blog, content—should all link back to your site. You want prospects to visit your site in order for them to learn more about your brand, and so you can entice them with your offerings and convert them into customers. As a small business owner, you should be maximizing the potential of your website in order to get more leads, a higher conversion rate, and increased profits.

Here are some things every small business should be doing with its website.

Keep It Simple

You don’t want to confuse or frustrate your site visitors. Keep your web address simple so it’s easy to find—no numbers, no hyphens. Use a clean design. Add an easy-to-navigate site map and drop-down menus so visitors can find the information they’re looking for quickly. Add clear links to your most important pages, create obvious calls to action, and make sure your brand is well described and your messaging is clear. You won’t have much time to impress visitors, so creating a website that’s overly complicated and difficult to navigate will not do you any good. They’ll leave and go to your competitor’s site instead.

Promote Your Contact Information Everywhere

As a small business, your strength will be your customer service. Make it as easy as possible for customers and prospects to get in touch with you or visit your store. Add your email address, location, and phone number just about everywhere on your site—from your headers and footers to your sidebars, as well as on your contact page, of course.

Also Check: 7 Reasons Why Your Business Needs a New Website

Use SEO

Using search engine optimization, or SEO, is vital for your site’s discoverability. You don’t have to be an SEO expert to optimize your site. Learn the basics, understand what not to do, perform some keyword research, start using keywords and phrases in your content, titles, photos, and meta-descriptions, add links, and name your page titles and URLs correctly, so you can start being found through search engines. When your site is coded properly, you’ll see an increase in leads.

Start Blogging

Adding a blog to your small business’s website is one of the best ways to boost your online rank. It allows you to update your site regularly with new content, which is looked at favourably by search engines. Plus, when you write knowledgeable, informative content that readers are interested in, it will build trust and credibility with your audience when you start to be known as a thought leader.

Also Check: How to Know If Your Website Sucks

Use Customer Testimonials

One of the most difficult parts of selling products or services as a small business is to gain the trust of your prospects. If they’re unsure about your brand, especially if they’ve never heard of you before, they might be too hesitant to make a purchase. Adding a section of customer testimonials will help you build the trust and credibility you need.

Make It Mobile Friendly

In today’s digital world, it’s absolutely essential that you optimize your site for mobile viewing. Sixty percent of online traffic comes from smart phones, and if your website doesn’t display well on a small screen, you’re going to miss out on tons of potential sales.

Plus, Google’s new algorithm now demotes sites that aren’t mobile friendly, so you’ll also see your online ranking plummet, which will make it more difficult for prospects to find your brand. Create a separate mobile site, use a dynamic serving approach or move your content over to a responsive design.

Also Check: 5 Reasons to Work with a Canadian HubSpot Partner