Are you planning to start a business? Was your business affected by the lockdown? Are you looking for ways to increase your sales? Do you want to build your business brand? A key strategy in the business development toolbox to meet these challenges is to set up a website.
5 Reasons Why Your Business Needs A Website
You’re on this page because this is the first website you’ll invest in. Some of you might be of “everybody has a website, so we might as well have one too” mindset. That doesn’t tell us you’re convinced your business needs a website.
Truth is, not everybody has a website, but the numbers are climbing.
Compared to 2018 when only 50% of businesses had websites, in 2021, 71% of entrepreneurs have invested in websites for their businesses. And this number is expected to rise over the next few years as the world continues to trend toward a mobile lifestyle.
If you’re still on the fence about investing in a website for your business, here are 5 reasons why you should hop off and get one started right away.
1. Build the Business Brand
You’re the storyteller on the website. Let the customers know why you set up the business, how your experiences can help them, and what you can do so they’ll have a better idea of who you are.
Blog frequently about topics that are of interest to your audience. Share your knowledge and offer solutions to the most common problems experienced by your customers and followers.
Consumers patronize brands that consistently give them the best solutions and the most reliable information. At the same time, if your brand is relatable, patrons will eventually become loyal customers.
2. Expand Your Reach
Unlike the commercial property where you’re leasing space for your business, the Internet never closes down for the day. It’s open 24/7, 365 days a year. The same goes for your website.
With proper content optimization, anyone in the world with Internet access can find your website. In combination with other digital marketing strategies such as social media marketing, email marketing, video marketing, and blogging, you can expand the reach of your business.
3. Develop Stronger Customer Relationships
How many times have you found yourself at a department store with a hundred questions in your mind about a specific product – but no one’s around to assist you?
And how many times have you entered an e-commerce website and a chatbot pops up on the right side of the page asking if you need help? In some cases, the chatbot connects you to the Messenger page of the business.
These are features that can easily be incorporated into your website. Chatbots are a great way of establishing strong customer relationships because you improve the experience of using your website.
4. Have Your Business Found Faster
In addition to having your website optimized for search engines, there are other ways you can make it easily found on the Internet.
- Make sure your business website is mobile-responsive.
- Create a profile page in a business online directory.
- Promote the website on your social media pages.
- Frequently write optimized blogs and other high-value content materials with your website link included and distribute them through multiple channels.
- Enter into a co-promotional agreement with a business that offers complementary services or products. Include a link to your website in all of the marketing materials.
Again, your website is open 24/7, 365 days a year. While you’re asleep, prospective customers or followers from other parts of the world might visit your website.
5. Generate New Streams of Revenue
Since your website never sleeps, come up with ideas that will allow you to create new streams of revenue for your business.
- Sell training programs.
- Offer consulting services.
- Sell e-books.
- Offer subscription services.
- Offer memberships.
- Sell merchandise.
- Sell products not found at your brick-and-mortar store.
- Become an affiliate marketer for other businesses.
As your website becomes more popular and grows in traffic, companies will be glad to pay for ad space.
5 Simple Tips For Building An Effective Business Website
It shouldn’t matter that you own a Prius and your neighbor drives a Buggati. Both brands of cars will take you wherever you want to go – the bank, the grocery store, or work.
You might wear a Casio while your neighbor wears a Rolex. Guess what? The Casio will tell time as precisely as the Rolex.
In website design, you don’t need a site with all the bells and whistles to be effective for your business. You just need one that’s useful and addresses the needs of its visitors.
1. Your Website Must be Mobile Responsive
Mobile responsiveness should be the top priority in the design of your website. According to Statista, mobile devices accounted for 58.99% of all website traffic during the first quarter of 2022.
If the person who clicked on your URL has to zoom -in to read the contents of your page, he’ll leave right away.
A website that’s mobile responsive will set up and adjust according to the size of the screen. The contents of the page will be visible. The frames will stack up vertically so that the user will have an easy time scrolling through your website.
Another reason for opting for mobile responsive design is that Google is watching. If your website isn’t mobile responsive, Google will penalize you in the search rankings.
When we onboard clients at Mountaintop Web Design, mobile responsiveness is a given for their websites. Confirming mobile responsiveness as part of our design goals is just a formality.
2. Optimize Your Website
If you wanted to find a specific retailer in the biggest mall in the world, you would have to consult the concierge or the site information directory, right?
It would have been easier and faster if you knew exactly where the retailer was located inside the mall so that you could park your car in the right building and save time.
Optimized design means making your website easier to find on the Internet – which is bigger than any mall in the world!
The Internet is home to 1.93 billion websites. Many of those websites are engaged in the same business as you and are trying to attract the same customers. Site optimization will give you an advantage over websites that aren’t optimized because they can get found and indexed faster by the search engine bots.
But there’s more to website optimization than getting your website found on the Internet.
A broad definition of website optimization is that it’s the process of developing strategies, applying tools, and conducting tests for the purpose of enhancing site visibility, improving site performance, generating more inbound traffic, and increasing the conversion rate.
If you want to learn more about website optimization and how it can give your website a boost in performance, here’s a link to our archives about the topic.
3. Design With the User in Mind
The success of your website will be determined by UX – User Experience. Website optimization will convince the user to click on your URL. What happens next depends on the user’s experience with your website.
For this reason, you should design the website with your user in mind. What do you want him to see? How do you want him to feel? What do you want him to do? Where do you want him to go after the Home Page?
The idea of designing with the user in mind is not cut and dry because users react to web pages differently. The purpose for visiting your website is different from one user to another. Likewise, how they process the design elements and contents on each page will be different.
The best way to approach user-friendly design is to put yourself behind the lenses of the user.
- Is your value proposition easy to find and understand?
- Can you find your menu bar right away?
- Is it fast and easy to download your web pages?
- Can you access the website with multiple browsers?
- Can you navigate your way in and around your website?
- Is the content easy to read?
- Do the images look good on a mobile screen?
- Can you spot the CTA right away?
- Can you find the social sharing buttons?
- If you have an e-commerce website, are the product descriptions detailed enough and easy to understand?
- Do your blogs address the most commonly searched topics about your industry on the Internet?
- Does your Contact Page have complete and updated information?
- Are the links on your website still functional and updated?
Don’t be satisfied if you ticked all the boxes. Run multiple tests with different users, collect the data, and conduct a thorough analysis.
The general rule to remember when coming up with a user-friendly design is “Don’t make the user think; make the design as obvious as possible.” Another way to look at user-friendly design is that if the feature isn’t useful, remove it.
4. Make Speed a Priority
In the previous section, we mentioned the importance of having web pages that are fast and easy to download.
Ideally, your web page should have a page loading time between 0 to 4 seconds. In a 2019 study conducted by Portent, conversion rates dropped 4.42% for every page loading time exceeding 5 seconds.
But it’s not only your website’s loading time that should be fast. You must also make it fast and easy for your visitors to use your website.
- Contact forms should be short, quick, and easy to fill out.
- Don’t require the user to share private/confidential information.
- Request for the user’s email address after he’s tested your website’s features.
- Don’t require subscriptions or memberships just to test some of your website’s features.
- Social sharing buttons must be easy to find and fully functional.
The design of your website must consider the user’s level of patience.
If it’s taking the user too much time to figure out the navigation of your website, he’ll leave. If the process of signing up for your newsletter has too many steps to complete, the user will abandon the action. If the user feels like he’s forced to give up confidential information “or else”, he’ll click out.
5. Functionality Over Aesthetics
A website that’s designed with beautiful, high-resolution images, graphics, and font styles will certainly attract the attention of the visitor. But people who land on your website aren’t there to admire your images, graphics, and font styles.
Instead of incorporating design elements that attract the user, incorporate design elements that capture the attention of the user. Prioritize the functionality of the design element over its aesthetic value.
A good example is the design of the Call-to-Action buttons. The design of the CTA button must catch the eye of the user and the text should compel him to take action.
Creating a large red button with the words “Buy Now” featured prominently on the home page will surely catch the attention of the site user. It’s simple but it gets the message across right away. The site user won’t second guess what you want him to do.
Another example is the use of white spaces.
Sure – bright colors attract attention but they also cause sensory overload. Having multiple colors on your website, especially the ones with brighter hues, might distract the user from what your site’s all about. It might be harder for the user to decipher the message or the value proposition of your website.
The use of white space makes it easier to distinguish the elements of design on your website. It won’t distract; rather, white spaces and even white lines help organize content and clarify your message.
In web design, sometimes the most effective solutions are the simplest ones.
Conclusion
The best website isn’t always the most beautiful. But the most effective website is the one that’s most useful and highly functional. It answers the questions that compelled the user to click on your URL.
Always keep the website user in mind because he’s in charge when he lands on your page. He decides on whether to click the mouse on specific pages or buttons on your website.
Whether you’re putting up the first website for your business or you’ve had previous experience, you can’t go wrong with user-centric website design.
To be sure, give us a call or drop us an email and we’ll get you started on your first business website.
And if you enjoyed this article and found it useful, share it with someone you know is also thinking about getting a website for his business.
