Some small store owners are still unsure what a website can do for them. They may feel they need a website, but they are not quite sure why, especially if they have no plans to sell products or services over the Internet.
Unfortunately, many jump in and get someone to design them a website without taking time to think through exactly what they want the web site to accomplish or what they want it to say. As a result, the website may not do much to bring them new customers or to retain existing ones.
For a website to be effective, both the design and the content require planning. And so do a number of other, less obvious factors. Who will read it? Why? How will they find it?
But how can you blame business owners for being confused? In the last few years some of the answers to those questions have changed. Huge new opportunities exist for small businesses—and most are unaware of them.
Even five years ago, most people used the Internet from home or business computers. Then many moved to laptops, and Internet usage became more mobile as people began working in coffee shops and client’s offices and using the Internet for local as well as world and national information. At the same time, people started shopping for local goods and services on the Internet before getting in the car.
Nowadays 80 percent of searches for local goods and services are done from mobile phones with Internet access. Almost no one uses phone directories anymore. That means, for example, a website that can be easily found in a local search (auto parts houston tx 77019) and easily viewed on a mobile phone can greatly increase profits by bringing in customers who are ready to buy.
QR Code Image via Wikipedia
The newest opportunity for business owners is the use of QR codes, images that can be photographed with a mobile phone to connect directly with the business’s website. So, for example a customer walking past a restaurant or shop could snap the QR code and go straight to that business’s mobile website to view menus, specials, coupons, business hours, phone numbers, and more.
Besides planning a website to appear to future and current customers, you need to make sure the website does the best possible job of attracting search engines like Google. Making a website appealing to search engines is called search engine optimization (SEO). Most web designers are not trained in SEO, and many business owners have never even heard of it. And that’s a problem.
There are huge opportunities for small businesses to interact directly with potential customers to get new business quickly. But most small business owners do not know how to do that, even if they are aware that the opportunities exist.
When a business owner eventually realizes that their website is not bringing in customers, they tend to take one of two attitudes. Either they decide that websites don’t work for them, or they decide their site needs SEO. And here is where they can really get into trouble.
Good SEO is mainly built into the website. We speak of organic SEO, and that means that the text, graphics, design, coding, domain name and tagging of the website are all optimized to appeal to search engines like Yahoo and Google and to potential site visitors. All good SEO starts with making sure the site itself is optimal.
But many people, often encouraged by SEO “experts” have the notion that SEO external. They assume they can make their site popular with search engines by paying to list it in business directories, paying other sites to link to theirs, and so on. In the past, some of those tactics did help, but those days are mostly gone.
A good search engine optimization consultant will first of all analyze your website, checking for appropriate, complete and well organized web content, easy-to-use organization, appealing (and easy-to-read) design. The consultant will also check many factors that are not visible to site visitors; coding, tagging, backlinks, heat map, bounce rate and other analytics—not just the number of visitors to the website but where they come from, how long they stay, and what they do.
A good SEO consultant will also make recommendations on how your site can take advantage of the new technologies that your business needs to compete online. The results in some cases can be dramatic increases in cash flow and profits in a fairly short time. They can let you leapfrog your competition and grab new customers fast.
So if your website is not contributing to the bottom line, you can take action to change that. The results of even search engine optimization on a small scale can be a lifesaver for a small business.
