The Importance of a Professional Website for Small Businesses
If you’re a small business then do not underestimate the power of a professional website can have for your business. In today’s world starting a small business is not easy so you need to do everything you can to stand out and a decent website is a valuable asset that you should invest in. With that being said you don’t have to be spending thousands of pounds to get a fantastic website, for as little as £45 per month you could get a fully managed, bespoke website.
Credibility
If someone comes across your business one of the first things they will do is look up your website, if it’s a pile of crap compared to your competitors then this is a major red flag. Your website should add credibility to your business and engage the customer to contact you.
Building Trust
Without a doubt, a professional website will build trust with your customers. If you’ve made the point of investing in a good website your customers are more likely to engage you with, simple as that.
81% of shoppers choose to research a business online before making a purchase, with 55% searching for online reviews and 47% searching for the business’ website.
Your website serves as the first point of contact for your potential customers therefore should not be overlooked.
How do I ensure my website is professional and will engage my customers?
Choose the right company
Your first task is to find the right company to build your website, this can be quite daunting with every man and his dog claiming they can build good websites. Try and avoid your mate down the pub who’s cousins, aunties dog can build websites. Choose a company with a reputation with real reviews.
Bespoke design
Great design is so important in web design. A design tailored to your business will really help you stand out, avoid companies that use off the shelf website templates otherwise you’ll end up with a mediocre website.
Copywriting is King
Do you think you can write good website copy that will entice your audience to engage with you? If not then invest in some solid copywriting. It’s probably the most important thing on your website.
User experience
Having a website that is hard to navigate is pointless, your website must be fast to load and easy for users to navigate.
Mobile ready
Over 50% of users nowadays will reach your website on a mobile device so it’s so important that your website is fully responsive and works across all mobiles, tablets, laptops and desktops.
How can I get my website found in search engines?
There are a number of ways to get your website found in search engines which we’ll explore below but let’s start with how things work. When a website is put live it will not appear in any search engines right away, there are essential things you must do for your website to be indexed in Google:
Submit your website to Google Search Console
Search console is a tool where you can view your website performance, the pages indexed in Google and identifies any issues with your website. Using Search Console you can submit a sitemap of your website which is a link that tells Google about all the pages contained within your website.
https://search.google.com/search-console/about
Setup Google Analytics
To view more in depth statistics about the traffic coming to your website, where they come from and a vast array of data, setup Google Analytics.
Setup Google My Business
If you add your business to Google My Business then this helps you get found locally. You can input your business details, add your location and contact details.
Search Engine Optimisation
The most effective way to get your business found in search engines is SEO (search engine optimisation) this is a process of some technical factors on your actual website and link building which means getting other people to link back to your website. To be found in Google, one of the most important factors is the actual website content. This is what Google will rank you for. The more relevant your content is, and the more engagement you get, combined with your website authority gained through backlinks, over time will ultimately determine your rankings in Google.
Pay Per Click
Pay per click is paid ads, you pay for your listing to be on Google and you compete with other businesses doing the same. How may clicks you get will depend on your budget and competition.
Social Media
A free way to get traffic to your website is to get referrals from your social media accounts. Like anything the more time you invest in your social media with regular content updates the more likely you are to get traffic coming to your website.
I’m getting traffic to my website buy no-one is engaging?
- If you are getting loads of people looking at your website but you’re getting no sales or no contact then there could be a problem:
- It could that your website has a poor user experience and people cannot easily find the information they are looking for.
- It could also be that your website takes forever to load
- Your messaging could be wrong and not be what people are looking for
- You could have a crap design
There could be many reasons but this is the importance in investing in a professional website that does the job properly for you.
Conclusion
To sum things up I cannot stress how important it is that your website is professional designed and built. You should give your small business the best chance of being a valuable tool that can generate new business of engage with your customers.
9 Reasons Why Your Small Business Needs Professional Web Design
Welcome to Zixel – Affordable web design for small businesses
This article is written by Jack Millard founder of Zixel. I am actually a real person and this was not written by AI or a robot. When I’m not writing blogs, I love great food, the occasional beer and motorbikes.
