The 4 Latest Tips for Small Business Websites

We’ve talked about writing content, mobile websites, customer-friendlywebsites, and we’ve even dipped a toe into Google Analytics. Today, we’re drawing it all together for small business websites.

1. Writing web content

We’ve spoken in detail about writing content for your website. Some key points from that blog were;

• Try to sound like an expert in your subject.
• Give the visitors what they want, e.g. your prices, your services, etc. 
• Add something to the online conversation, don’t just copy other people’s content. It’ll make your website, and you, stand out from the crowd.
• Write for your customers, not for Google. So don’t just use keywords over and over, make it readable.

This applies to the even the smallest business. Even a business as small as a one-man local dog walking service needs a website. It’s the best way of telling people who you are, and what you do, 24/7; so the content really is essential.

The main difference between a large organisation and a small business, is that your website can be a lot simpler. Your customers might be primarily local, meaning they will use your website for contact details, opening hours, and prices. Get started with the basics and you can build your content up over time.

Top tip for knowing what to write: speak to your customers!

If customers are always asking you about your insurance policy, then stick some information about it on your website.

If a lot of potential customers have 2 dogs and are wondering if you’ll walk the second one half price… Stick some information about it on your website!

2. Make your website work on mobiles

Mobile websites are currently overtaking normal desktop websites in terms of popularity, so it’s time to get on board.

Mobile websites are quite different to desktop websites, but the main difference is that they can’t handle as much data. In the initial stages of getting a website, you need to make sure it’s going to work on mobiles, either through a responsive design or a dedicated mobile site. Going back and changing a website to make it responsive is a lot harder after the website is finished…

Here are a few things you can do right now to make your non-mobile website work a little better on mobiles, until you can redesign it responsively;

• Reduce the number of pictures. Loads of images on a website make it very heavy, so it will run very slowly on a mobile. The simplest mobile websites are just a single menu – just look at the difference between www.amazon.co.uk on a laptop, and the mobile version.
• Reduce the amount of text. Mobile screens are a lot smaller, which forces the text to be a lot smaller too, so nobody is going to be able to read it without zooming in. You can make it a bit easier for them however, by keeping text succinct and breaking it up with subheadings.

Disclaimer: When we're optimising your website for mobiles, 

a lot of technical changes are involved; 

it's not a simple text and image update! 

Recently, new customers have been asking us to make their old websites work on mobiles (websites that were made years ago by someone else, before mobile websites became so huge). This is not a simple update and can often require a completely new website design. So if you’re getting a website now, simply say early on

“Design this responsively, please!”

Bonus statistic: 

85% of UK smartphone users have searched mobile websites for local information 

and 81% of these took action as a result.

3. Be clear on your website goal

In the middle of all the content about who you are and what you do, remember to make the goal of your website clear.

Some examples of simple goals are:

• Complete an online contact form
• Make an online purchase
• Call a specific phone number

If you want customers to call your number, then make it clear by highlighting your phone number in some way (make it bold, underlined), and mentioning that you want them to call;

“Be sure to give me a call if you’re interested in my dog walking service!”

Check out our Customer Friendly Website Guide 

for more in-depth information on guiding your customers towards a goal. 

4. Measure what you can, to see what works

We looked at one aspect of Google Analytics in an earlier blog, and that was bounce rate. The bounce rate of a page in your website is measurable; we can see if it’s 80% or 12%. A high bounce rate means a lot of people are arriving at your site, then turning around and leaving again, so it’s typically a bad thing, but there are a few exceptions. For more on bounce rate, check out that blog.

As a small business owner, you probably don’t have time to install Google Analytics and start analysing the performance of your website. However, there are a few things you can keep track of with minimal time;

• If you add a new page to the website, or change a simple sentence, keep track of the number of phone calls you’re getting afterwards. An increase in calls could be attributed to your website update, as you might have made it easier to find.
• Keep track of the number of email enquiries you get. If there has been a major increase or decrease, try to reason out what might have caused it; did you recently remove stock from your website?
• Talk to your customers. Ask them if they’ve visited your website, and how they found it. It can be useful to find out how people are getting to your website, as it means you can tailor some info directly to them. For example, if a lot of your customers visit your website after reading positive reviews on Google, then you could talk more about how you value your customers, because it’s clearly important to them!

"Now I can make my website better!"

So if you’re a small business owner at a bit of a loss with how to improve your website, take a breath! All you have to do is;

1. Overhaul your content & make sure you’re talking to your customers, instead of AT them!
2. Think about mobiles; does your website work on a mobile phone?
3. Make your website goals clear. Do you want people to phone, email, or fill out an enquiry form? Then ask them!
4. Try to keep track of any increase/decrease in customer contact, especially after making a change to your website

If you’re interested in a professional website service, just get in touch with our team here at Vital Hike.

We can take the hassle out of content writing

We are up-to-date and experienced in the best ways to optimise for mobile

We have an online marketing team who will work on boosting your website’s performance

And best of all, we run in-depth analytics on your website to measure its daily performance

Get your small business online

With Vital Hike

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