Most small business owners have realized the value of having a website, primarily due to the pandemic. For instance, retail platforms have seen a massive increase in traffic during the major part of 2020. This has led to increased exposure and sales for many businesses, mainly local and small-scale enterprises. If you are a small-business owner, you, too, should have a website that can lead to business growth.
But, designing a website is no easy task. A website should be able to attract and engage customers. The user experience should be flawless, resulting in increased brand awareness and sales. So, how do you create a stunning, sales-driving website? Read on to know more.
Good domain name
The domain name is the entry point for your website. It is your virtual identity. It is important that your website name creates a good first impression and helps with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) purposes. Thus, your website name should be simple. At the same time, it should also reflect your company’s brand identity. Here are few tips for choosing your website domain name:
- Keep it easy to spell and speak and avoid using slang or complicated words.
- Try to keep the name as short as possible as short names are easier to remember.
- Choose the perfect extension for the website, depending upon your business type, i.e., .org, or .com.
- Have an SEO-friendly name, if possible, to have your website rank higher in search engine results.
Clutter-free
A small business website should be simple yet attractive to the visitor. Your website should provide concise information to the visitor. Similarly, your website design should be neat and sober, without too many extra elements or plugins. Having too much information or a complicated website user interface can confuse the visitor and turn them away. If you have your website created and hosted on WordPress, you can easily create a simple yet intriguing website with WordPress management tools.
Fast hosting service provider
The hosting service provider offers the tools required that enable a website to be viewed on the internet. Thus, it would be best if you chose a secure, fast, and scalable service provider. Some points to remember when choosing a hosting provider include:
- Avoid choosing a shared hosting server and instead, opt for a dedicated server hosting plan. Although the latter can be expensive, it offers better services and results in a high-performance website.
- Make sure that the service provider has excellent customer support. Things, sometimes, go wrong with website management. Thus, you need an excellent support team that can help you resolve the problem immediately.
- Check the security provided by the provider. Make sure that the company performs regular security updates to keep your website from getting hacked or misused.
Mobile friendly
Most people today use their mobile phones to surf the internet. Additionally, Google has announced its mobile-first index, which means Google predominantly uses the mobile version of the website to index and rank websites. Thus, having a mobile-friendly website is a top priority in today’s day and age. Your website should provide the same flawless experience on mobile devices as it does on a desktop or a tablet. Some tips for having a mobile-friendly website are:
- Choose a responsive theme
- Simplify your content
- Have simple, fast, responsive UI elements
- Avoid having pop-ups or other distracting elements
- Compress your images and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
SEO optimization
It is important to have your website SEO optimized to have it ranked higher on the search results page for the services you offer. The search engine crawler scans and analyzes websites for the content and then ranks them based on their quality and design. If your website is not SEO optimized, your competitors might rank higher on the search engine results page, leading to loss of potential business. There are two types of SEO optimization, front-end, and back-end SEO optimization. Some good SEO practices include:
- Keyword optimization for the website content
- Fast loading speeds
- Optimal website code without any bugs or broken links
- High-quality backlinks that lead to your website
- Mobile friendly
- Internal links that lead to other sections and pages on your website
- Linking social media profiles on your website
Having an SEO optimized website can lead to a high volume of free traffic to your website, and eventually, business growth.
We hope that this blog will help you in creating your business website. As you can see that developing a website for your business is not as simple as it seems. It would be best if you had a plan to ensure that the website proves helpful for your business growth and shouldn’t merely exist as an online listing.
