There are many things for the small business owner to consider. But one of the key components to every business is a good, quality website. In this day and age you’ll be hard pressed to find good, succeeding companies in operation without a web presence. However, there are many things to consider before you take your business online, here you can find five top tips to consider before you actually start the website, you should have plans for all of these before you begin, otherwise you’ll end up giving yourself too much work in a short space of time.
Spend Time On The URL
Don’t rush your URL, because once you’ve chosen it and built your website you simply cannot change it. You’ll already have a customer base and it’ll incur another charge. The URL needs to be perfect, sometimes you can get what you want or need for quite cheap, but try not to be put off by price. It might cost you a hefty some, a few thousand to register for example, but if it’s exactly what you want it really shouldn’t stop you. Don’t over complicate things, there shouldn’t be numbers in the website, this suggests there are other sites of the same name. Remember, it should be simply and clean, something your clients will remember.
Consider How Payment And Ecommerce Will Work
You could consider a site like PayPal, but there’s always something unprofessional and amateurish about it, when you look at the top websites they all use bespoke built in e-commerce systems. You could start out with PayPal, in fact, many consumers prefer it and find it more secure, so there is that. If you think you could do with some help with e-commerce then perhaps seek out professional help, you could use magento software for your site’s market.
Think About Search Engine Optimisation, (SEO).
Once you’ve got your website out there you need to think about how people are going to find it. There are likely competitors, who all use SEO to ensure customers find them before you. It can be as simple as ensuring your website is structured in a way leading search engines can understand. Or even ensuring it flashes up on a search, these days search engines are smart but if your site isn’t optimised there’s potential the search engines won’t even find it. You can find a comprehensive guide to SEO here.
Advertise Your Site
You need to start trying to get links back to your site. Use forums which are concerned with your business area and start posting smart comments with links back to your sight, don’t blanket forums, it’ll just annoy people, but be clever about it. You should also solicit reviews of people with popular blogs in your business area. You can pay them with a free product and their resulting article can lead people back to your site. Don’t forget to build platforms on social media, these should also link back to your site but in a good way, use clever and engaging content, don’t use clickbait, again, this will just annoy people.
