Optimising Your Website To Grow Your Small Business

A lot of small businesses are building websites today!

And this is a good thing, but for many of them – building a website site is just for the sake of it.

To attach a modern feel to their small business brand, to have something so beautiful that it blows customers’ minds away.

Most small business websites today have not been optimised strategically to help grow their businesses.

This article explains tips that will help you convert your website into a tool for your business growth.

It’s 2021, the world is moving at a faster pace than ever, technology is advancing and providing access to a global market at little or no cost at all.

For any smart business owner, this is a huge deal.

A website means your small business in Ibadan can sell to customers in Watford without spending millions on opening a shop in Watford.

So naturally, you ask a website developer to create a website.

But to take advantage of the opportunities that the internet presents, it is not enough to own a website – you must leverage it as a tool to expand your sales, your brand awareness and meet your business goals.

This is why you need to know how to unlock the value of your website.

How To Use Your Website To Grow your Small Business

1. What purpose does your website serve?

2. Keep your Target Customer In Mind.

3. Keep It Up To Date

4. Measure Performance & Improve

1. What Purpose Does Your Website Serve?

Having a website because everyone else in your industry does is one thing, having it because it serves a strategic purpose for your small business is another.

The difference is often seen in the results these websites bring, even though they may look aesthetically similar.

Whether you already have a website or you’re just planning to get one, ask yourself what do I want to achieve?

Do I want to use it to get more sales, to generate leads or just to showcase my products or services?

The purpose of a website will determine how it is built, you can’t build a website that just showcases your offers and expect it to convert more visitors to sales.

That is why people build eCommerce sites.

Be clear on the purpose you want your website to serve, and build around that core purpose.

2. Keep Your Customers In Mind

By now, you know that it is important for a business owner to build with the customer in mind.

Yes, it is also important when you’re building a website.

You see, when you’re building a website, there are so many things you have to consider, so many decisions you have to make.

But you will make the best decisions if you put the needs of your customers first.

One of those decisions concerns the kind of language you will use to communicate with your visitors.

Ensure that your messaging is consistent with your brand, and the language you will use throughout the website is easy to understand.

Try avoiding technical terminology – they don’t help the visitor to make a buying decision, they only end up confusing them.

Another decision you’ll make is how you will optimize your website.

If your target audience uses their laptops to surf the net, make sure your website is optimized for desktop view, but if they use smartphones instead, launch a mobile-friendly website.

And say your customers are in some areas of Nigeria, where data is a problem, you can optimize your site to be accessed with little or no data.

3. Keep It Up To Date

If you have no plan to update and maintain your website consistently, you should not build it in the first place.

Imagine you have a store, and you don’t clean your windows, the terrible door is not fixed, the air conditioners are not working, and then you expect to attract the same number of customers as you did when everything worked?

Impossible.

Many small business websites today have not been updated since 2012, their content is stale, bug-ridden and they don’t reflect recent changes in the business.

You should update your website regularly; necessary improvements should be made to make sure it is in great working condition for your visitors.

Change the images, update the copy, and optimize your website’s performance with new plugins and tools.

4. Measure Performance & Improve

Whatever purpose your website serves, you have to be able to measure it.

If you are using it to generate leads for your salespeople, you have to set monthly, quarterly and annual goals for it.

This way, you can measure how well it performed vis-a-vis the goals set.

Then you can find out the things you can do to improve its performance over time.

Using various analytics tools can help you measure website traffic, bounce rate, conversions, and other metrics you can use to re the performance of your website easily.

A website is a critical part of the success of many small businesses today, but that is only because they have optimized their sites to bring value and help their businesses grow.

You should use these tips to help your website grow your business.

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