Small and medium-sized businesses often find themselves challenging when creating a captivating and relevant website that drives traffic and generates conversions. On the one hand, they likely don’t have the resources or the team to make the same caliber of websites as major corporations. If you want a professional-looking website reach out to affordable web design services. They are an excellent local Kansas City Web Design agency.
However, their visitors and customers still expect to come to a website that conveys trust and is informative. Thankfully, there are still many options for small and medium-sized businesses that want a fantastic site. Below, you learn about what makes a site from forgettable to amazing.
What’s In A Name?
Your web address also referred to as a domain name, is typically the entry point of your site. Therefore, making a good impression with your site’s name is crucial for recognition among your visitors and helps boost SEO and ranking.
A few tips to remember:
- Keep it short
- Keep it simple and easy to spell
- Use the right extension – usually .com for businesses
- Make it memorable
- Avoid numbers and symbols
- Leave room for growth
Choose The Right Host
A website host, also commonly referred to as a website hosting provider, provides the services and technology required to access websites and webpages throughout the internet. Website hosts make it possible for your customers and visitors to get to your site through a web address.
Hosting services costs can vary anywhere from $2 to more than $100 per month, depending on the level of technology and support you require. Much of this is dependent on whether you opt for a shared or dedicated server. While shared servers are cheaper, dedicated servers come more highly recommended due to their reliability and functionality.
Make A Great First Impression
Showing your visitors who you are and how your business can help them is essential and must occur almost immediately. Ensure your main homepage banner and accompanying banners accurately demonstrate your products and services. Towards the top of the page, text blurbs help your business share digestible points regarding what it does and how it serves its customers.
You also want to make it as easy as possible for your visitors to dig deeper. For example, “About Us” page links should be readily available in both your primary and footer navigation menus. This allows people to click them and learn more about your company. Effective communication and easy navigation are essential to a results-driven website.
Choose A Reliable E-Commerce Platform
You’ll need the right technology if you want to sell items and services through your website. If you don’t currently sell anything, you should think about as because e-commerce has the potential to improve your income vastly. However, if you want consumers to make financial transactions with you online, you’ll need to pick the right platform for your business.
A few of the most reputable eCommerce platforms include:
- Shopify
- WooCommerce
- Business Squarespace
- Wix
- GoDaddy Online Store
Nail Your Content Management
Content management systems (CMS) allow you to produce and manage digital material and content. Fortunately, these programs usually don’t require much technical skills and expertise.
Selecting a CMS is personal, and it is crucial to find the one that best meets your specific requirements as different systems are utilized for various reasons, including user-friendliness, extensibility, and cost. Ultimately, the most important thing is to find the content management system to help your business achieve its goals.
Search Engine Optimization
What is search engine optimization or SEO? It is a method used on a website to ensure that search engines properly index, rank, and show it to search engine users. When search engines “scan through” or “crawl” your website, it compares your website with other websites
that are similar. It’s essential that you spend some time optimizing your website because an optimized site will rank higher in search engine results pages. While the explanation is simple enough, SEO is one of the top factors related to the success of a website and requires a complete understanding of how it works.
SEO is mainly determined by:
- Many positive reviews
- Effective use of social media to link to your site
- Employing internal links throughout your content and copy to keep visitors on your site for as long as possible
- Proper keyword research and application
- Quick loading speed
- Providing a safe and secure site with an SSL certificate
- Mobile-friendliness
- Optimized code
- High-quality backlinks
Create A Memorable And Engaging Interface
Make sure your small company website’s UX (the user experience) creates a great first impression that leads to conversions. Readable fonts, exciting graphics, quickly found information, and calls to action contribute to creating a beneficial experience for your visitors.
However, many more “background” factors contribute to your website’s interface and user-friendly functionality. For example, while it is crucial to include captivating graphics, you’ll need to ensure that your pictures have been compressed and optimized for quick loading. Search engines, such as Google will penalize your rating if your website is slow.
Consistent Content
Search engines value volume and freshness of information, so make a plan to publish high-quality articles and blog posts on your site, as well as on areas that connect to yours.
You must update your website with new and relevant material as regularly as possible for the best search engine results to attract people to visit your site again and again. Your content should be SEO optimized to ensure that it reaches the people searching for products and services similar to yours.
Hiring A Professional
Running a business is time-consuming enough. Delegating your website maintenance will save you countless hours. Also, these skills take time to learn, and you will have to withstand some trial and error before you know how to get it right.
An easier way to approach website building is through a digital marketing and web design firm like Just 99. Web Design can help you free up your time. Hire a trusted team of professionals who can use their expertise to create a truly great site for you!