Owning a Small Business Website - Part 1

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1 3 Do s and 3 Don ts of Owning a Small Business Website: Part 1 Courtesy of your Web Coach Helping you navigate the web Geek-Speak Level 1

2 DO have a strong promotional offer on your home page When potential customers visit your website, make sure you have the best possible chance of converting them into a paying customer or sales lead. Provide an incentive for website visitors to give you their details. This could be something as simple as a discount coupon for the next product or service they purchase on your site. Create a form to collect your customer enquiry leads and place it on the right side of your home page. Make sure the name, phone and form fields are easily visible. Position your business phone number prominently in the top right corner of your home page; this is standard placement for this information. If you generate leads or inquiries from customers visiting your website, you need to respond to them as quickly as possible. It s very likely that a new lead who filled out a form on your website will soon do the same thing on your competitors site! 2

3 DO ensure that your website portrays a professional image For many small business owners who operate from home, their website is their shop front for all customers. Make sure your website always makes a good impression. Update and proofread your website regularly. Spelling errors or outdated information will decrease the credibility of your business. Set (3) simple brand (i.e., design) guidelines for your small business. For example: 1. Use a logo across all your customer facing pages 2. Use a defined color palette 3. Use a defined font type First impressions count. You don t often get a second chance. 3

4 DO have high expections for your website Just having a website is not enough anymore. Your website will be, in most cases, your most cost-effective way to reach new customers. Set clear monthly targets to contribute to your business bottom line. For example, if your website is a virtual brochure designed to increase calls or leads into your business, make sure you create clear metrics and measure how many calls and leads were obtained through your website on a monthly basis. To ensure your website maintains high standards, try conducting incentivized surveys on your homepage by utilizing or even social media. Ask your customers simple questions about what they like and don t like about your website. You will gain valuable insight to help you convert more website visitors into paying customers. Your website should be your small business MVP. If it isn t, do something about it! 4

5 DON T overload your home page with content Keep your home page clean and fresh, acting as a funnel for information presented throughout the site. Drop-down menus can provide easy access to site content. Create a site plan that includes main pages and all sub-pages that will present information on your site. Make sure you design your site with your customer in mind the layout and placement of information has to make sense to them and be ideally only one click from your homepage. Use white space! Balance content on your site with a generous portion of open space. White space helps your website visitors more easily absorb content without getting confused and distracted. When potential customers land on your home page, you will only have their attention for a few seconds. If you overload them with too much information at once, you will confuse them and they will hit the back button! 5

6 DON T give up trying to generate new customers with your website The beauty of your website is that it isn t set in stone. If you run a special promotion and it doesn t work, try again and again until it does work. Test one strong promotional offer at a time on your homepage. Set the promotional offer for a limited time and measure the results! If the results are not as good as you expect, try another promotional offer. Set a conversion benchmark. Divide the amount of monthly visitors to your website by the amount of leads or sales your website makes. This will give you a conversion rate that you can use to measure the monthly success of your site. Track this every month and look for continual improvement. Once you ve worked out your conversion rate and you feel you re starting to achieve some success, the next step is getting more potential new customers to visit your site. This is where Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing come into play. You need to think of your website as an employee of your small business. If the site is not making sales or generating leads, you need to know why, and what you can do to fix it. If failure continues, fire your website and get a new one! 6

7 DON T ignore your website s statistics Nearly every hosting account comes with a free statistics program. If you have never looked at the statistical performance of your website, it is likely that you haven t activated your statistics program. Once you have an active statistics program collecting data on the performance of your website, you will have a much clearer perspective of what s working and what isn t. In addition to measuring your website s conversion rate, try adding these important metrics to your website s performance report. 1. Bounce rate - this tells you how many potential customers (or traffic) land on your website then exit (or bounce) quickly after 2. Unique visits - this tells you how many individuals (or computer IP addresses) visited your site at least once within a time period 3. Time on site - this tells you on average how long visitors are spending on your website There are a number of statistical metrics that you can use to determine your website s performance. The most important thing isn t which of the metrics you are using; it s that you re actually measuring your progress in the first place. Rate this ebook 2013 The Endurance International Group, Inc. - ipage is a registered trademark of The Endurance International Group, Inc. All other brands and trademarks referenced in this ebook are trademarks of their respective owners and are not affiliated with or sponsors of this ebook. The contents of this ebook are presented for general informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal or other professional advice. Endurance International Group is not liable for any damages of any kind related to use of any information presented in this ebook. 7