05 Jan Tips for Building a Great Small Business Website

Whether your small business is a floral shop, a photography studio, a consulting firm, or you create handmade jewelry, you will need a website to communicate with potential clients/customers. A website can help small businesses increase flexibility, control, branding and credibility. We’ve compiled some great tips to keep in mind when you are creating a website for your small business.

Obtain a Good Domain Name

This is arguably the most important tip as the domain name/website address is the entry point to your website. Having a good domain name is important for usability and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

• Make sure your domain name is easy to spell so users can easily type it out if they need to. We recommend avoiding slang or made-up words.
• Keep it short and avoid using hyphens and a lot of numbers. This will help users remember it and type it correctly.
• Make it memorable! There are so many websites out there on the internet you want to make sure yours is catchy and stands out so people will remember it.
• Research the domain name. Be sure to Google it to see if a similar website address already exists and make sure that the domain name you chose doesn’t include any registered trademarks.
• Chose a name that conveys what your business is.

Select the Best Website Host for You and Your Business

In a nutshell, web hosting is the process of renting or buying space to house a website on the internet. Hosting services can range in price from $5/month to $200+/month depending on the kind of support you chose. Some things to consider when choosing your host:

• While a shared server hosting plan is the cheapest option, it may not be the best choice. Shared hosting means that you are sharing a server and resources with other customers of the hosting company, and your website performance can suffer as a result.
• A dedicated server is the most expensive option but will allow you to optimize website performance. With a dedicated server, the physical server is only supporting your website. This may be overkill for an early-stage small business, but keep it in the back of your mind as you grow and expand your business.
• A virtual private server (“VPS”) is a compromise between shared and dedicated. With a VPS there is a single server machine that is partitioned off to act as multiple machines. So, you get the affordability of the shared server and the security and performance of a dedicated server – the best of both worlds!
• Choose a hosting company that has 24/7 support so that you can get help if you are having issues. Phone support is best, but chat support works well also.

Some of the popular website hosting companies out there include GoDaddy, DreamHost, BlueHost, InMotion, and SiteGround.

Research Content Management Systems (CMS) to Determine the Best Fit

A CMS is an application that is used to manage website content, allowing multiple contributors to create, edit and publish. You don’t need coding and technical knowledge to be able to manage your website and a good CMS will help you maintain your site without that specialized knowledge. Some of the most popular systems include WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix. Be sure to do your research and choose the CMS that best fits and needs of you and your business.

Selling Goods or Services? Choose a Good E-Commerce Platform

If you want to sell goods and services online as part of your small business you will need the technology to do so. There are a lot of e-commerce platforms out there like Shopify, Squarespace Business, and WooCommerce, and you will need to select the right one for you. Consider features, ease of use, customization options, support, and cost when you are looking into e-commerce platforms.

Create a Visually Appealing and Memorable Website Interface

You want your website to leave a positive impression on visitors. Here are some suggestions to help you do that:

• Make sure the fonts you use are easy-to-read.
• Keep your branding consistent across all pages on your site.
• Use beautiful and eye-catching graphics.
• Create an intuitive and easy-to-use navigation system that allows users to access the pages they want from your site easily and quickly.
• Make call-to-action buttons large and obvious (buy now, book now, contact us, etc.).

Don’t Forget About SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is extremely important for websites as it will ensure that search engines like Google index and rank your website appropriately and show it to users. The better your website design and content are, the higher it will rank on search engine results pages. You want to be as close to the #1 spot as you can get so your business has visibility to potential customers.

SEO best practices include:

• Align your content with search intent.
• Write compelling title tags and meta descriptions for your web pages.
• Optimize the images on your site.
• Optimize your website’s page loading speed – quicker is better.
• Build out an internal linking structure.
• Improve the user experience with things like headers and sub-headers, mobile-friendliness, use of white space, etc.
• Make your URLs SEO-Friendly by keeping them short and sweet.
• Earn backlinks from well-ranked sites.
• Create useful content.

Keep Content Fresh and Exciting

A visually appealing and well-organized website will only get you so far…you also need to have meaningful content on there to engage your users. Not only is content quantity important, but the quality and freshness of that content are important as well.

• Create a content calendar to stay organized and keep the fresh content coming.
• Consider asking your customers for testimonials that you can update frequently on your site.
• Start a blog within your website to post relevant content and include keywords to help you with SEO.

Create a Website Maintenance Plan for Yourself

Websites are living, breathing entities that need to be tended to. A successful website that ranks well and stays secure will require some maintenance.

• Install Webmaster Tools and check Webmaster Tools data monthly. These tools can be used to track visitors, views, bounce rate, average time spent on the site, broken links, etc.
• Make sure all your software is up-to-date.
• Run security scans frequently.
• Use traffic data to learn more about your audience and how they behave online.
• Allow users to provide website feedback (and read it!).
• Check out the competition.
• Ensure your website is baked up in multiple ways to avoid losing any data.

Now that you are armed and ready to create a beautiful and functional website for your small business, it’s time to think about office space. If you are looking for a new office space to lease for your business, check out Prime Storage Commercial’s office listings. With various options from small single rooms to large office suites and standalone buildings, Prime has spaces available to meet your needs.