Did you know that one in four small businesses still does not have a website?
That’s 23% of 1250 small business owners surveyed by Digital.com. Additionally, one in three of these small businesses without a website claim they have never needed a website. Moreover, twenty-nine percent of them are convinced their customers do not go online.
If you are one of these small businesses that still do not have a website, listen up.
Find a website design and development services provider right now and start building your website.
You Need a Website
If anything, the pandemic should have made you realize how important having a website is to businesses, both big and small.
In 2020, spurred by the restrictions because of the COVID-19 pandemic, global retail eCommerce sales increased by 27.6% for a total value of USD 4.28 trillion. In 2023, this figure is expected to grow to USD 6.5 trillion, accounting for 22% of all retail sales globally.
More importantly, most customer purchases (63%) begin online.
In other words, even if a customer visits a brick-and-mortar store to buy shoes in person, they would have most likely started their customer journey online. They might have gone online to research their options, found stores that carry their preferred shoe brand and model, and compared the prices across different stores. They might have even read reviews about a store before purchasing shoes from there.
What does this mean for a small business owner like you?
If you do not have a website, you’re likely making 63% less potential sales. Think about it. The customers who could have bought from you or signed up with you couldn’t even consider you when making their purchase decision. Because they couldn’t find you online, you couldn’t even be in the running when they were looking for a shop to buy from or a provider to use.
How about Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social platforms? You probably have those, and those are online, right?
Yes, people might find you on these social platforms. Social media platforms are information access points. However, according to a Digital Content Next study, internet users still trust brand websites more than social media.
Thus, even if your brand or business is visible on social media, you’re more likely to be trusted (and therefore chosen) if you have a brand or company website.
Website Essentials
Are you ready to leap and plunge into the deep end of website design and development? Here are some tips on building your website. These will ensure you can maximize the positive impact of your small business website.
Content Management System
WordPress is a content management system. So are Hubspot CMS Hub, Joomla, Drupal, and Wix. But what is a content management system?
A content management system is a platform or software that lets you easily publish, manage, and update content on your website. It is also a platform that enables you to build a website easily, even if you don’t know how to code. For instance, on WordPress, you could easily put together a website even if you don’t know HTML, CSS, and PHP.
However, even if you are using a CMS, you’ll still find it easier to get a professional to build your website than do it yourself. Thus, it’s best to think of a CMS as a platform for content management.
So, what will a CMS like WordPress let you do? You can create blog posts and website pages easily with a CMS. See an error in your business information? A CMS should let you quickly correct that information. Do you have an upcoming promotion? Your CMS should readily let you publish an announcement about that promotion.
A content management system will ensure you can update the content on your website yourself, even without the help of your website developer or your IT staff.
In contrast, a hand-coded website would require you to make changes on HTML or PHP pages instead of conveniently making updates on a user-friendly, content-publication interface.
Responsiveness
Your website should be mobile-friendly. It should look good and be readable even when your customer visits it using his mobile phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop. In other words, your website should dynamically adjust to the gadget’s viewport size.
Responsive websites automatically adjust their content font sizes (i.e., larger font) when viewed from smaller screens. Content boxes typically stack up, menus are hidden but remain easily accessible through a clickable icon, and images are optimized to ensure they will load quickly and completely even with the relatively limited bandwidth often available to internet data users.
In other words, responsive websites adapt to the device. They remain useful and functional even when viewed on small screens, but they may have more complex designs when viewed on larger screens.
Important Information First
Fifty-four seconds — that’s the average length of time people spend on a webpage across all industries. Yes, people won’t stick around to read all the content on your website. Therefore, once you get them there, give them the most important information first.
This means providing your contact information, perhaps along with a contact form, on the top portion of your website. The following information should also be immediately evident without the need for much scrolling:
- The problem you are trying to solve
- Your solution
- Your benefits
- Expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness signals (e.g., testimonials)
- Your prices (or a highly visible and accessible link to your pricing page)
- Steps on how to avail of services
- Call to action
In other words, include the above essential information at the top section of your website, say, on the header and right underneath it. Structure these in an easy-to-read and readily digestible format — e.g., short sentences, lists, etc.
Build Your Small Business Website: The Sooner, the Better
You’re missing out if you are a small business without a website.
You can have the best weight loss retreat program in the region, but it wouldn’t matter if your target customers can’t find you online because you have no website.
Social media presence will never be enough. Given a choice between a company with a brand website and one without, it’s highly likely your target customers will choose the former over the latter.
So, work with a branding agency in Dubai to help you start building your website.
The sooner you do this, the better for your business.
AUTHOR BIO
Stuart Harris is the Creative Director at Yellow, a Dubai branding agency, digital partner and advertising company working with progressive businesses to build bold, meaningful brands.
