How to build a strong small business website

We’re only a few weeks away from a brand new decade, yet one-third of all small businesses in the UK still don’t have a website! Why?

According to research from 2019 Small Business Website Statistics, small business owners say:

• Their business is too small to even have a website or irrelevant to the industry

• Use social media and mobile apps instead of a website

• Costs of website maintenance and lack of technical knowledge

It’s one thing to have a website, but is your website just a landing page, or an actual marketing tool? Small businesses need to know that in today’s time a website is highly crucial for brand legitimacy and a strong online presence.

Here are some basic steps you need to take into consideration when building your business website.

Obtain a good domain name

Your domain name can make or break the impact of your website. You’ll want to choose a name that will be easy on the ears, quick to remember, and attention-grabbing. You can follow the tips below whenever you want to choose your website domain name:

• Make it easy to spell
• Keep it as short as possible
• Use the proper domain extension
• Avoid numbers and hyphens
• If possible, stick with .com
• Make the address broad to facilitate future expansion
• Create an SEO-friendly URL

Purchase a secure, scalable website hosting service

A website can only “go live” when there is a web hosting service. That’s precisely how customers or anyone online is able to access your website. Work with a secure and reliable web hosting company to host your website. If using a website builder, the web hosting company will be included in the package.

Display a clear description of your business

What is your business about? Answer this question very clearly on your website. Clearly state what your website is about, and what it offers. A website must describe what your business is about, right from the first page. If the information on your website is not clear then customers will have a hard time remembering your brand or services.

Remember, no one will endlessly browse through your website if the information they’re looking for is not straightforward and accessible. Plus, no search engine will rank a website that is ambiguous.

Implement the best content management system

A content management system (CMS) is an application or software that is used to create and manage digital content. From texts, images and videos to other forms of visuals and graphics, a CMS will help you handle and curate them to give your website an elegant touch. Website builders offer all this and more, but if you’re more tech-savvy, you could opt for a more complicated CMS.

Nowadays, you need to have a good structure and informative content in order for your website to rank highly. This is why deciding on the right CMS is highly crucial for your business website.

Create an engaging website design

Good user experience is a must when it comes to building a website. Bad design, overcrowdedness or boring elements can drive customers away. In order to draw traffic to your website, you must give a good first impression.

To improve your website’s design, you can apply the following tricks:

• Use beautiful graphics and easy-to-read fonts
• Research the competition to see how they design and optimise their websites
• Design an intuitive navigation system
• Incorporate obvious call-to-actions
• Create catchy pages

How Prosper² can help

Did you know Prosper² offers its members a website SEO audit? Also an 80% points reward!  Make your website engaging, search engine friendly and boost traffic with our services.

SEO Report includes checks for:

• Duplicate title tags
• Low word count
• Broken links
• Slow page load speed
• HTTPS implementation issues
• Missing title tags
• Missing meta description
• Missing h1 tag
• Incorrect href lang implementation
• Images with empty ‘alt’ tags
• Nofollow attributes on links
• Duplicate content

The full version of this article was originally published on Real Business. Read the original article here.