Why every small business needs a website; 7 reasons why!

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Social proof heavily influences buying decisions, there's no bigger example of social proof than Google...

"If Google can't find you, do you really exist?'

01 SOCIAL PROOF FOR A SMALL BUSINESS WEBSITE

Social proof heavily influences buying decisions;

USERS

Customers/clients recommend your products or services based on their experience.

EXPERTS

Recommendation from an industry expert; this maybe be via a collaboration, social media post or direct referral.

POPULARITY

A large number of followers use/recommend your product or service.

CELEBRITY & INFLUENCERS

Your product or service has been endorsed through social media or a marketing campaign.

CERTIFICATION

You have certification or approval from an authority figure/entity.

GOOGLE REVIEWS 

Good ratings build trust before someone even clicks on your website.

TESTIMONIALS

Most people read a least one review before making a purchasing decision.

CASE STUDIES

Case studies and stories that explain the process and experience of the work are a deep-dive social proof.

CONTENT SHARING 

Re-sharing content from users is perfect social proof and works really well across social media platforms.

02 YOUR BUSINESS BETTER HAVE A WEBSITE

Nowadays, if you don’t have a site, not only will you NOT get business online, people will actually question your business’ legitimacy and your personal integrity.

People need your business to have a website, modern day searching for products and services needs to be on their device, at a time that suits them. They can then dream how great their life will be once they have your services or products...

03 YOUR BRAND NEEDS A VOICE

A brand voice is your company's distinctiveness, this is the words, language, tone, that tell your story, its purpose and use is to make a memorable experience that resonates with your clients and customers, and they connect with it. 

It is used in all your marketing collateral including, email campaigns, social media posts, and your website, it makes you recognisable to your clients and customers! 

Your website is your most shop front, your vital marketing tool that communicates what you believe, why you believe it, your mission and values, the problems you solve, and how you’re going to do it. This is your chance to creatively express your unique persona and lead the way!

Through your brand voice, your visitors can get to know, like, trust, and understand your brand. Your website helps you build a relationship with your audience.

04 A WEBSITE STREAMLINES YOUR BUSINESS OPERATIONS

Having the right tools makes it easier to run and grow your small business. On of the best tools to use for streamlining business operations is your website. I love using the Wixstudio platform for small businesses because it's a website solution with a lot of tools and features.

Small business owners need to spend their time and energy doing what they do best. Your website enables you to easily manage your content with pages, portfolios, products, blogs and more. It showcases your services and products and is home to the technology that runs the back-end of of businesses to create a seamless experience or you and your clients.

05 A WEBSITE PROVIDES 24/7 365 CUSTOMER SERVICES

Your website is there to encourage people to make contact with you. Your site is available 24/7, it provides information to potential clients and customers, it provides answers to questions and it negates the need for customers to contact you via phone and email.

Website tools, processes and automation means you don't have to worry. Your FAQ's, information pages, online forms, automated emails are all there to help you grow your small business.

07 BUILD YOUR ON-LINE AUTHORITY

Online authority is a person or entity who is trusted by its users, other websites, industry and search engines. Someone who is an authority has expertise, skills, and shares insights with others. Your website is the best place to build and perfect your online authority—using your content, writing, images, and more—it’s your platform where you should shape the story of your company. 

Building authority online, will help you rank higher and gain more business. How do you get there? Here are a few things you can do to build authority:

BRAND YOUR BUSINESS

Do people know who you are? You must look expert too, that’s where visual branding comes in. Visual brand identity tells your brand story to your audience, all your brand elements should encompass your identity include: logo, photography, colors, etc...

This is only part of the challenge to building online authority, written content, sounding expert is half the battle.

NICHE AUDIENCE

Know your audience: You don’t need a big audience to build authority. Smaller, specific audiences (including small email lists) can make a big profit and generate more action because like-minded individuals are more likely to be engaged and connect with your brand.

When your target audience is niche, your website is designed to resonate and connect with those people and you can become a strong in a smaller community.

WEBSITE DESIGN

User friendly website:  Your site is an experience; a core element of your brand. It’s a valuable resource that connects with your clients. People form their first opinion of your company from your site branding.

Your website sets the tone for the entire brand experience: colors,images, graphics all build the feelings that the audience will either ignore or gravitate towards you.

Websites need to be easy to use and navigate. Keep it simple, limit the number of clicks to contact you or check out, make it look and feel good.

CONTENT

Knowledge is power; write informational content. Provide information that is helpful to readers, people share it and search engines take notice.

You can convert more readers into clients by creating intentonal and purposeful content. Think about your content marketing strategy, be consistent, grow and engage your audience. This all helps establish your brand authoritative in your industry.

You can write blog posts, a book, or ebook, guides, and repurpose/reshare that content in your social media and emails.

VIDEO

We’re all watching more than reading these day so video content can really engage people.

Create video content and capture the interest of your readers with informational or entertaining videos.

Think about YouTube channels because YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google!

EVENTS

Hosting and attending events: Associating yourself with other professionals can expand your network.  Business relationships often lead to referrals too. This could look like co-hosting a webinar, guest blogging, podcast interviews, speaking engagements, or going live on social media.

08 GET FOUND BY SEARCH ENGINES (SEO)

Search engine optimization efforts help your website appear higher in search rankings and increase your website visibility. The higher your website ranks, the more people will click on your site, and just by getting more site traffic, you’ll have a more awareness of your brand and more people to potentially do business with you. 

Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console to help get your site listed in search engines faster.  

Your website must have basic SEO included to get results. This includes:

PAGE TITLES:

This is a short description of a webpage and appears at the top of the search engine results pages also known as the title tag. The page title should include the page’s keyword.

META DESCRIPTIONS

The information about your page that appears below the page title. The description doesn’t directly influence ranking but it does influence whether a user clicks the page title and in Google search, words that you searched are bolded within the meta description, making your description visually stand out.

IMAGE ALT-TAGGING

ALT attributes are descriptive text to an image that can be accessed by screen readers (browsers used by people with a visual impairment). This text not only improves the accessibility of your pages but also strengthens image search results.

WRITTEN PAGE CONTENT

The words on your website pages and how you format headings can influence your page ranking. The minimum word count to aim for is 1,500 words. Headlines should include keyword-rich phrases because search engines (and people) scan the headings to understand what the content is about.

Know your audience and write the copy for them. Chunking your content makes it easier to read. Use visual elements to support the content.

LINKS TO OTHER SITES

Linking out to high-quality sites tells search engines that your site is connected to other sites that offer valuable content. Getting a link back to your site from a high-quality site is even better for your SEO. You can get backlinks by sharing really high-quality content on your site or guest posting on more popular websites.

REFRESH CONTENT

Regularly add new quality written content or update old content. Creating content and adding it to your site can be challenging for small businesses, but you must do it to increase your organic search. Well designed websites will make it simple to manage content updates, or your website provider may offer solutions/packages and they perform the content updates for you.

GOOGLE MY BUSINESS PAGE

Stand out on Google with a free Business Profile, you need to sign up (and verify) a GMB page for your small business. Fill out as much information as possible, add in your logo, add photos, add descriptions, make a post, and get reviews. When people search for your business and services (on Google or Google Maps) you show up in the listings. The majority of our site traffic comes from Google and I get our clients to set up and build out this page. It’s that important

So why do small businesses need a website?

Well I guess now you know why, you can get industrious, creative and driven to create your stunning website and start sharing your brilliance!