How to Build a Strong Online Presence for Your Small Business: 10 Website Best Practices

Setting the Stage: Why having a strong online presence is important for small businesses

Having a strong online presence is now table stakes for every small business. Your website is often the first point of contact with potential customers, so it’s important to make a good impression.

Creating a website that is user-friendly, informative, and attractive can be a challenge.  But it’s worth the effort.

A well-designed website helps you stand out from the competition and give your business credibility.

To help you get started, we’ve compiled a list of 10 website best practices for small businesses. This list gives you some more items to improve your website from our original top 5 list.

By following these tips, you’ll be on your way to creating a strong online presence for your business.

#1: Use responsive design

Responsive design makes sure your website looks good and functions regardless of the device.

With more people using cell phones, businesses need to account for different screen sizes and optimize their site for them.

The website should adjust to the size of the device it is being viewed on, whether it’s a laptop, tablet, or smartphone.

Fortunately, many modern website building make it easy for small business owners to create a responsive website. And more often than not, simple is better than complex! 

Using a mobile-responsive theme or template is a great place to start. Generally, the necessary coding is already done for you.

#2: Optimize your website for SEO

Apart from responsive design, it’s also important for business owners to optimize for search engine optimization (SEO). This means ensuring that your website is visible to online search engines.

SEO involves making simple changes to your website to increase its visibility to internet crawlers like Google.

When done the right way, SEO increases the chances of customers finding your site when searching for a product or service related to your business.

Good SEO includes best practices like:

• Ensuring your website's meta titles and descriptions are relevant to the page and include keywords
• Writing blog content that includes good use of relevant keywords
• Creating backlinks
• Optimizing images and videos
• Maintaining a well-designed website navigation structure
  

When done right, SEO can get your website to the top of the search engine results pages and increase the chances of customers finding your website.

#3: Use fresh, original content

Creating original content is a great way to build a strong online presence for your business.

Content creation helps establish your thought leadership and builds credibility with your customers.

When it comes to content creation, there are several types of content you should consider. These include:

• Blog posts
• White papers
• Case studies
• Infographics
• Videos
• Photos

Each piece of content should be unique and provide value to the customer. Make sure to research and include the right keywords and provide useful or interesting information.

The more you engage customers and help solve their problems, the more they'll come back.

Creating and sharing good content can also help with SEO. Content helps you get more links from other sites - building authority and increase the chances of users finding your website.

#4: Promote social media sharing

Social media can be a powerful tool to promote your business and build a presence online. It can increase website visits, engage customers, and bring more attention to your brand.

But, it's important to use the right strategies to make sure your efforts are successful. Here are some of the best practices that can help you promote social media sharing:

• Design attractive visuals – Images and videos can attract more attention to your post and encourage users to share it.
• Optimize posts for sharing – Make sure that any post you share contains a link back to your website. This will help bring more visitors and convert viewers into customers.
• Create content for social media – Develop content designed for social media sharing, such as polls, quizzes, and GIFs.
• Analyze your results – Track your results on social media to see what works and what doesn't. This will help you refine your strategy and ensure success.
  

#5: Have a clear call to action.

Having a clear call-to-action on your website is critical for getting customers to do something. A (CTA) is an offer to take action, such as subscribing to a newsletter, clicking on a link, or even making a purchase.

With a clear CTA, you'll be able to direct visitors to take a specific action, such as signing up for a free trial. Here are some tips to help you create an effective CTA:

• Start your CTA with an action-oriented verb such as “Sign Up”, “Download” or “Subscribe”.
• To make your CTA stand out, make sure to write a compelling headline that grabs the attention of your visitors.
• Make sure that your CTA is easy to spot on your website by using bold colors and a good size font.
• Offer an incentive to encourage visitors to click on your CTA. It could be a free trial, a discount or even access to exclusive content.
  

#6: Make it easy to contact you

Customers are more likely to take action if it is easy for them to contact you. Whether that’s for questions about your products and services, or just a better way to get in touch with you - make sure that you have a way for website visitors to easily contact you.

Put your contact information in a prominent and obvious place on your website. On the top or bottom of every page so that it is easy to spot.

Make sure your contact forms are easy to use and provide different contact methods. For example, provide customers with an email address, a phone number, a contact form, or even a chatbot for quick responses.

#7: Use visuals

According to a study by User Testing, 65% of people are visual learners, and 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual.

Using visuals on your website can help you convey complex information with a single image. Visuals can also help to create an emotional connection with your web visitors.

When using visuals on your website, make sure to follow these best practices:

• Keep visuals relevant and related to the topic you’re discussing in your content.
• Use high-quality visuals that will look good on all devices.
• Avoid stock photos – Try to avoid stock photos as they can look generic and unoriginal.
  

#8: Keep it updated

When creating your web presence, no matter how small your business is, you want to make sure that it looks professional.

One way to ensure that is to keep your website updated - making sure that your content is fresh, relevant, and timely.

Update your content monthly by creating new blog posts, showcasing recent projects, or highlighting new products and services. Then use social media to keep people up to date and expand your reach.

Besides your content, it's also important to keep your technology up to date.

Websites usually need some level of maintenance to make sure that they're still working as designed. Remember - always be testing!

#9: Have a plan

Having a plan is a best practice for building a strong online presence for any small business.

A plan will keep you focused and on the right track when it comes to your website goals. It will also provide you with an effective way to measure the progress of your website.

Growth systems and growth plans are great places to start when you're thinking about how to expand your online presence.

When it comes to planning your website, here are the steps in the process we normally use at Fortuna Design Co:

• Determine what you want your website to do, such as increasing brand awareness, generating leads, or driving sales.
• Know who your target audience is so you can create content that appeals to them.
• Track website usage and engagement to get insight into the performance of your website. Then adjust your strategy and optimize your website for better performance.
• Create a content strategy to keep your content fresh, relevant, and up-to-date. Write blog posts, create videos, or share helpful tips with your audience.
• Set a timeline – Establish a timeline for website development, deployment, and maintenance. This will help you stay on track and avoid any delays.
  

#10: Make it you!

Your website should speak to your audience in your own voice.

It should be an extension of you and your business, so make sure to give it your own personal touch.

It’s also important to be consistent. Develop your own website style and tone and make sure to use it on all your webpages.

Whether it’s through the design of your website or your writing - having your own voice will make you stand out and help build relationships with customers.

The best practice is to make your website personal.

It should represent you, your business, and your values and provide an authentic experience for your viewers and customers.

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Wrapping it Up

It’s important to have all your ducks in a row by the time you launch your website.

Everything should be in place to ensure that you are providing the best service you can offer to your readers. Make sure to test all the features on your website before you launch it.

There also needs to be a post-launch plan, very rarely can you create a website and just "set it and forget it".

Decide on a content schedule and how often you’d like to publish new content. Schedule time to review analytics and the data to decide where to move next.

Having a schedule will help you stay organized and help you stick to your plan.

These are just a few tips and tricks to help you build a strong online presence for your business, but there are thousands more out there.

Just remember you've got to start somewhere but you can always add more later!

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You can dive into a wealth of more than 25 resources, checklists and step-by-step instructions in our guide on how to implement simple systems that grow your business.

Ready to take your online presence to the next level? At Fortuna Design Co, we specialize in making it stunningly simple to grow your business online. Contact us today to discuss how our expert services can transform your website into a powerful tool for growth.