As a small business owner, you’re always looking for ways to make your business grow and thrive. But at times, it can feel like you’re hitting a brick wall, like nothing you do makes a difference for your company.
Hitting a plateau doesn’t mean that you should pack up your boxes and close your shop. It just means that you need to try a new tactic — like overhauling your website to take some of the weight off your shoulders.
In this post, you’ll learn the things to consider when updating a website, so that you can bring in more business and help your company flourish. Read on for tips for building a great website for your business.
Make sure your website is both functional and visually appealing
If you haven’t updated your website structure in a while, take a look at it again. Open up your website and do your best to look at it objectively.
Aesthetics
First, glance at the surface and determine if it’s visually appealing. Is the text easy to read against the background? Are the website’s colors indicative of your company’s personality? Do you like looking at the website?
If the answer to any of these questions is no, then you need to address the aesthetic aspect of your website. Potential customers should enjoy engaging with your website, and the website’s appearance is the first thing they’ll evaluate.
Functionality
Even the most beautiful website is worthless unless it works well. Have someone who is unfamiliar with your website open up the main page, and attempt to navigate through without your help.
A first-time visitor should be able to navigate through the pages easily and quickly, without getting frustrated or confused by the website’s layout.
To do this, it’s almost always necessary to have a tab at the top or the side of the screen that lists all of the pages by a clear name. For example, you could have tabs for “About Us,” “Products and Services,” “Pricing,” and “Contact Us.” These pages will vary depending on your specific website, but every website should have a “Contact Us” page — which we’ll discuss next.
Create a “Contact Us” page — and check your messages every day
Your current and potential customers should be able to contact you with no difficulty at all. In this day and age, the majority of people will search for your company’s contact information online. Use this to your advantage by making it easy for people to get in touch with you.
“Contact Us” essentials
On your contact page, you should clearly list your company’s physical address, email address, phone number, and hours of availability. If you have a preferred method of communication, state that clearly on the page.
For instance, if you respond more quickly over email, then say that outright: “For the quickest response, please contact us by email.”
Also include a form on the page itself for potential customers to reach out to you from your website. Usually, these inquiries will be forwarded to an email address that you specify as you setup the page.
Follow-up essentials
Once you set up a contact page, it is absolutely crucial that you actually respond to those messages and calls — and in a timely manner. Set aside some time at least once a day to go through all of your customer emails, phone calls, and any other messages. Make this part of your daily habit, so that you don’t overlook or postpone responding to inquiries.
After you’ve set up this habit, include a line on your contact page that indicates how long it should take you to respond. This way, customers know that if that window of time passes, you aren’t ignoring them, there likely was just a problem with their message going through.
Maintenance and improvement: taking it to the next step
So, you’ve made improvements to your website. Although you will certainly see an uptick in your online activity, don’t stop there. Continue to improve your website regularly, and you won’t have to do complete overhauls in the future.
For instance, you can make money from your website by placing outside ads or plugging for other companies in your blog posts. This is one way to make your website do even more work for your business.
Either way, make sure that you maintain your website through regular content update and regular tweaking for any glitches or dead links. Investing money into maintaining your website is similar to investing in insurance for your business, it’s a way to make sure that your business is on solid group with room to grow.
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