WHY NOW IS THE PERFECT TIME TO REBUILD YOUR SMALL BUSINESS WEBSITE
The customer profile has changed in the past decades, and they are more demanding than ever. In a recent study, 1 in 3 customers says that if they have only one bad experience with a brand they love, they will walk away. In Latin America, this number rises to almost 50%.
This can be a nightmare for any brand since now there are a plethora of social media channels customers can use to share their thoughts, and they won’t hesitate to do so.
Market competition has also increased. Today, there is a huge number of companies of all sizes selling all kinds of products and services, and to stand out in a crowded marketplace is vital now for every business, especially small ones.
But what does a website have to do with all of that?
A website is one of the many touchpoints of your company, along with collateral, stationery, and packaging, to name a few. It’s one of the first places your audience will have experience with in connection to your brand. Thus, if it’s outdated and poorly designed, chances are that your competitor will get a new client sooner.
Now you might be asking: Okay, but how do I know if my website is outdated?
The first sign: You get uncomfortable sharing your company’s website. (Trust me, I’ve been there.)
“Of course we have a website, but don’t go there, give us a call instead.” If you can relate to that, it’s time for a change.
Usually, this happens if you see your competitors creating a more appealing website than yours or if your customers are telling you that your page is hard to navigate or that they couldn’t find specific information.
Convinced? Good! 🙂
Let me walk you through important things you need to consider on your next project:
Mobile friendly
Mobile accounts for more than 50% of all traffic on the Internet. Quite impressive, don’t you think? Since 2015, Google has been considering mobile friendliness as a ranking signal for searches conducted on mobile devices. Additionally, smartphones are the most frequently used device by millennials – so if they are your audience, be prepared.
Good design
Consciously or not, people tend to rely more on everything that has a good design. It brings credibility. An eye-catching website shows that the company takes its business seriously and cares about their customers’ impressions. It also helps to keep the user sticking around rather than leaving the page. Moreover, 73% of the top-performing companies are investing in design to differentiate their brands, so why wouldn’t yours?
Page speed
If your page takes forever to load, you may be losing money. The reason is simple: if your visitors have to spend more than just a few seconds waiting for your website to load, they will leave and go looking for another website. Also, Google considers load time as a factor for ranking, since it wants to deliver websites with the best user experience on its search result.
Security
When the website URL in the address bar of your browser starts with HTTPS and has a security padlock icon, it means that the website is secure. HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol, and the letter S stands for Secure. Secure websites have an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate, which means that personal data like passwords or credit card numbers passing between clients and web servers are encrypted; thus, it cannot be stolen by hackers. It also builds a trusted relationship with your customers, meaning that your company takes their privacy seriously. Moreover, since 2014, Google has taken the security of a website as a slight ranking signal.
Good content
What’s the use of having a beautiful website if it doesn’t have good content? Content provides information about your product or service and publishing good and fresh content consistently helps your customer find you on Google and trust your brand. You can do that by publishing relevant content in the form of blogs or articles, increasing the authority of your company in a specific segment, giving your visitors reasons to come back again and again.
Now that you know some of the most important things a small business website has to have in 2020, and why, let’s discuss two other good reasons to take care of your project.
If you advertise to give your website more visitors, leads, and conversion, it is crucial to keep users on your page once they get there, consuming content and having a good experience with your brand. If your website is not prepared for these new visitors, all your money and effort will have been in vain.
The same goes for newsletters – if you spend time sending prospecting emails and keeping in touch with your audience, they will visit your website. But if your website is not good, well, you already know, right?
With all that said, tell me: how’s your website right now?
Are you excited to build your new website?
We will talk about your story and how I'm going to create your beautifully bespoke project!