Started a new small business? In this day and age, it will be challenging to take your business online without creating a business website to promote your business.
Global e-commerce sales are anticipated to hit $4.8 trillion by 2021. And already 64% of small businesses own a website.
To be able to compete with your peers, you need a stellar website with all the modern features.
Here are some good reasons why your small business needs a modern website.
Customers are using mobile devices to purchase online.
As per stats, 82% of Internet users in the US have used a smartphone to buy online, while 35% of US consumers solely use their smartphones to buy online.
These are good enough reasons why you need a mobile-responsive website design. It will be an excellent strategy to go mobile-first. Thus, give priority to the user experience of your website on mobile over desktop.
A responsive website changes depending on your device’s screen size. It will have dynamic content, optimized images, the right layout based on the device, and it depends on mobile operating systems for its function.
When you design a responsive website, the texts and images will alter from a three-column layout to fit the screen of a smartphone flawlessly.
Your website needs to be optimized for SEO.
The main goal of a website is to attract leads that convert into paying customers. And apart from referral traffic that you get from social media and other sites, one of the best ways to get discovered is via search engines.
When you rank higher in search engines, your website will be gaining the much sought after exposure. SEO is a marketing service; however, you should be building your website on a foundation of SEO best practices.
Using the right keywords in your website headers and texts will help search engines to read your relevancy. Have an SEO consulting session with experts from an SEO agency and allow them to have a look at your technical SEO and your business’ on-page and off-page strategy.
You want to create a brand inspired website.
When you are doing business online, your website is going to represent who you are. It is said that it takes only 0.05 seconds for visitors to form an opinion of your band. So see that it is attractive. Your website design element should flow smoothly and make sense.
Design a logo and use the right colors, font, and style. And ensure that your design is consistent with your marketing and branding efforts.
Using a signature brand color can increase your brand recognition by 80%.
Plus, the consistent presentation of the brand can increase revenue by 33%.
Increased focus on UX/UI.
Modern web design is increasingly focusing on humans to offer the best experience. Thus, your UX should be smooth, uninterrupted, and engaging. You will have to focus on fast page load, white space, relevant SEO content, and multimedia.
It is said that 53% of mobile browsers leave a website if it takes more than three seconds to load.
Moreover, your site’s UI must be intuitive. The focus should be on voice-enabled interfaces, image captions, video transcriptions, and balanced motion design.
Make it a point to offer your visitors easy-to-read content and easy-to-use interfaces. Plus, keep the aesthetics appealing.
Leverage powerful marketing channels.
The benefits of digital marketing are huge. It is cost-effective, creates high engagement, it is non-intrusive, has the potential for massive ROI, and more.
What’s more, it has the ability to segment audiences and personalize your message to your customer. Plus, there is analytics to track accurate and real-time results.
But you can leverage all these benefits only if you have a fast and functioning website. Your website will serve as the digital home of your business. Regardless of how active you may be on your social media channels, they can’t replace your business website.
Establish your business credibility
It is said that 75% of a website’s credibility is attributed to design. A poorly designed website ruins your image while a good design will increase credibility.
Moreover, it is estimated that more than 80% of consumers trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations. When you have a website, you can include customer testimonials to increase the trust of potential buyers. Owning a well-maintained website is the key to establish social proof.
Wrapping-Up
These are some of the main reasons why having a modern website is crucial for your small business success.
More and more consumers are using mobile while browsing and purchasing products. So, you don’t want to lose out on them. Start by building a mobile-first website design, focus on optimizing your SEO, create a brand inspired website, and focus on UX/UI.
After you build your desired website, you can leverage on marketing channels and focus on establishing your business credibility.
About the Author:
Hazel Raoult is a freelance marketing writer and works with PRmention. She has 6+ years of experience in writing about business, entrepreneurship, marketing and all things SaaS. Hazel loves to split her time between writing, editing, and hanging out with her family.
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