With people now turning to the Internet to find products or services, as a small business owner, you want it to be found online to compete with competitors. A website can become the main avenue for new customers to find your business and a place for people who have heard about you to visit and learn more about the business before making contact. With many local businesses nowadays actively investing time and money in an online presence for their business, the competition online within every industry is a good enough reason why your small business needs a website.
Business Websites Can Be Affordable
Some small businesses initially choose not to have a website, often stating the costs of hosting, hiring a website developer, and upkeep or maintenance as reasons why they do not want one. However, there is Affordable Web Hosting out there. In some instances, such as a local takeaway, they may come out on top with a Google Business Listing, although this free online profile for businesses needs the same attention and search engine optimisation as any website.
To compete with others today, your business needs an online presence to be able to reach potential customers through every possible avenue, and a website in many cases is an extension of the business. To have a solid chance of successfully competing with others, you will want your business available to people online, and you will eventually see how many are visiting your business website by the inquiries coming through a contact page or via phone if it’s also on the website.
Locals Searching For Products Or Services
It is estimated that well over two billion people now use the Internet every day, which includes searches for local tradespeople, shopping online, and using social media. Many searches online are for specific products and services, with most of these searches visiting a website to learn more before they decide on any purchase. Local businesses can benefit exponentially from having a website and an online presence to reach potential customers who may be looking for quotes.
To compete in local search, your home page, product, and service pages need Website Search Engine Optimisation. Your website will benefit from this which gives it a greater opportunity to be found in search engine results, and you also want the website pages on page one in search engine results pages. When website pages are fully optimised for search with the use of keywords, it has a better chance of ranking locally and being found by those searching on Google search. You need to focus on the business’s target keywords, for example, if someone was to type in “SEO Wellington“, SEO Enforcer may appear in their search results.
Your Small Business Website Is Open 24 Hours
One of the best things about a small business website is that it’s available to people 24 hours a day, and accessible to new customers any day of the week. The website doesn’t close for the weekend, and when the business closes for the day the website continues to sell or gain new leads. If new customers want to view information about your business, or find out more about the services, products, or the business location, then they can go and browse through the content of your website.
A website serves to function as an extra voice for the owner and the business. An optimised website for your small business can be more effective than purchasing expensive ad spaces in newspapers or advertising on billboards and these generally do not reach targeted audiences. Websites are a direct method of communicating what the business has to offer, functioning as a means of contact and customer support. This is the most important aspect of having a website for your small business, and the best thing is that you can post any content you want.
Create A Website That Fits Your Business Needs
You may have already browsed online, looked through different website-building platforms, or looked at the different features your competitors may be using on their websites. Albeit this helps you decide what you want to see with your own, or what the business needs to capture leads and produce sales on or offline. It’s important to not get too overwhelmed by all the technical jargon that you may come across and maybe not quite fully understand yet, and this in itself can make it difficult to choose one company over the other.
WordPress, for instance, is a good platform, although certainly, the base script which you can download, is better uploaded into your hosting account, but you need to find and install plugins to help build your website which can be very time-consuming if you don’t know what to look for. You can find quality website builders, and Strikingly is one website builder that stands out with millions also using their platform, and they have many templates to choose from with the necessary components for any small business website.
As mentioned, you want to build an effective website that fits your business needs while starting with the main pages, such as the home page, service or product page, contact page and an about us page, then building on from those once they are complete. Although it takes time to build a website and create content for it, the sooner your site is live on your business domain, the sooner you can start directing prospective customers or clients to it and look toward making your business website an authority within your industry.
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