A website is one of the essential tools a local business can possess. I run a small business myself, and it’s something I’ve learned firsthand. There are several simple things you need to do when designing your website to make sure it helps your customers find you, know more about what you have to offer and contact you.
Create a WordPress website that showcases your products or services.
You can create a WordPress website that showcases your products or services.
WordPress is an easy-to-use site builder that allows you to quickly create a website and update it whenever you want. It’s also customizable, which means you can make changes to your site’s look without hiring someone else for help. And WordPress is open-source, so it’s free for you to use!
In addition, WordPress has plugins—which are additional features that allow users to add extra functionality like forms or calendars—that make it easy for anyone who knows how to write basic HTML code (or even someone who doesn’t know any coding at all) to take their existing business online and get started immediately with their first step in building an online presence. This makes getting started much less intimidating than learning from scratch on another platform might be!
Make it easy for visitors to contact you.
The first thing visitors will do when they land on your website is looking for a contact form. If it’s hard to find or too complicated, they’ll give up and go elsewhere. Make sure your website has a contact form; it’s easy to find and use.
Next, make sure the privacy policy is clear and easy to understand. For example: “We will never sell or share any of your personal information with third parties.”
Finally, give people something in return for filling out the form—like a free report or eBook—and don’t forget to ask them if they want more information!
Draw traffic to your website with an SEO strategy.
Search engine optimization is a set of strategies to increase visibility in search engine results pages. If you’re not familiar with SEO, it simply means that your website ranks higher in online searches, which leads more people to visit your website and potentially convert into customers.
The main goal of an SEO strategy is to attract people who are actively looking for what you have to offer—like a business owner who wants information on how to start an online store but doesn’t know where to find that information. With an effective SEO strategy, this person would find their way straight back to you!
SEO involves four main components: keywords (or phrases), content (textual content on the page), links from other websites and social media channels (links from other places on the internet), and technical elements like coding or webpage design structures. You can learn more about each component here in our Beginner’s Guide To SEO Strategy article series:
Create content to drive repeat visitors.
If your website is the only place customers can find the information they’re looking for, then it’s essential to create relevant content for your audience. Focus on creating content that is helpful and entertaining. In other words, make sure people want to read what you have to say!
When developing content for your website, it’s essential to keep in mind how easy it will be for visitors to find when they visit. Suppose a visitor cannot quickly locate what they’re looking for on the first page of search results and clicks off instead of continuing their search through the rest of your site (or worse,e yet, ultimately leaving). In that case, there’s not much point in creating any content if no one will ever see it.
When creating new blog posts or articles and adding them to their corresponding directories or pages within WordPress or Drupal CMS systems (more on these later), remember some basic formatting rules: make sure each paragraph has its line break before new sections are started; leave ample white space between paragraphs, so readers’ eyes aren’t overwhelmed by lines upon lines of text; use italic font sparingly—it may seem like a good idea at first, but after awhile users get tired reading too many italicized words back-to-back; avoid using underlines completely unless necessary (for example when trying out different colours).
Leverage social media to build relationships and attract new customers.
Social media is the most effective way for a local business to attract new customers, build brand awareness and generate leads. Social media can bring in more traffic, but it’s also a great way to build relationships with your existing customers.
Start building an email list.
This is a great way to build customer relationships, generate sales and gather feedback. It’s easy to set up and maintain, and it’s free.
It’s also a great way to build trust with customers because they can see you are being transparent and honest with them. You should ensure that you include all of the information they need on your site in an easy-to-find place and make sure it has an email signup form so that visitors can join your list there.
To use a website to grow your local business, you need to be able to create a website, then draw traffic to it through search engines and social media – and then convert those people into customers.
To use a website to grow your local business, you need to be able to create a website, then draw traffic to it through search engines and social media – and then convert those people into customers.
That’s three steps: 1) Create a site; 2) Get traffic from the internet; 3) Convert those visitors into customers. Let’s break down each one in detail.
Conclusion
Remember that the web is a vast and complicated plan. If the place’s not sure how to get started, you can always hire an agency like ours to help. We’re here for you!
