What Makes A Good Small Business Website
A strong, well-designed website is the starting point for your business’s online success. At Carden Digital, we’ve created a number of small business websites for companies that are either just getting started or transitioning from a social media to a web platform. From registering the domain and setting up the hosting, all the way through to advertising the finished website online, we can handle the entire procedure. We design websites which convey your business’s brand and service offering and help you engage with your ideal customer base.
Carden Digital is a digital marketing agency based in Brighton, East Sussex. We specialise in designing and developing websites, as well as running paid advertising and social media campaigns.
What Is The Purpose Of Your Website?
If you run a business, you already know that you need a website. But why? The answer can be surprisingly different depending on which services you offer and what stage of your business’s lifecycle you are in.
Some of the most common purposes for a business website are:
- To sell products directly through your website
- To generate interest in your business and gather leads
- To engage with your existing customers
- To let new customers book appointments or request quotes
- To outperform your competitors on search engines
- To encourage users to visit your physical location
All of these are good reasons for a small business to have a website as part of their marketing strategy. But how many web design firms deliver on these aims?
When we start working with a small business to create a website for them, the first thing we do is discuss their aims. This aim informs the entire design of the website. All the website design elements should be gently nudging the user towards the website’s goal. Elements which could distract from the website’s goal should be minimised or removed entirely.
The Different Types Of Business Website
There are almost as many websites as there are businesses, but there are a few categories which most sites fall in to. At Carden Digital, we’ve built successful, high-quality, user-friendly versions of all of these for our clients.
Before you build your site, think about which of these three would best suit your aims.
Landing Page
A landing page is a single page website with a clearly defined goal. These are often bold, with large buttons, loud headlines, and a minimal amount of content. Sites like this are unlikely to perform well in organic search but are often highly successful when used as the destination for online ad campaigns.
E-Commerce
An ecommerce site is a one where customers can buy products directly. Large companies like Amazon and ASOS have successful ecommerce websites, but any size of business can run a successful online store. If you have an inventory of stock and the ability to fulfil postal orders, you are leaving money on the table by not offering online sales.
Brochure
These websites act as an online showcase of the USPs of your business. Alongside details of the services you provide, they will often also include portfolios, customer testimonials and meet the team sections. The purpose of these website is to encourage interest in your business and services as well as to demonstrate that you are a “real” business.
My Small Business Already Has A Large Social Media Presence, Why Do I Need A Website?
Social media has revolutionised the way that businesses market themselves online. While it is true that there are many successful small businesses who have their main presence on Instagram or Facebook, there are still good reasons to have a website. For example:
- Not every customer uses every social media platform, but they all use the same “internet”. Just because you have found a great audience on Instagram doesn’t mean you should stop there. Remember that as of 2021, 55% of the UK still doesn’t have an Instagram account.
- When you rely entirely on a third-party platform for your business presence, you are at the mercy of their decisions. If they decide you have broken the platforms rules, or the rules themselves change, you could lose your online presence overnight. When you run your own website, so long as your content is legal under UK law, it is almost impossible for anyone to remove it.
- You cannot sell directly through every platform. If you want to effectively run an ecommerce business, you will need your own online shop.
Website Hosting and URL
At Carden Digital, we don’t just help you design your website, we also help you host it and find the right URL for you.
Your website will be hosted locally while we work on it. Once it’s complete, if you have your own hosting already, we can transfer it to your hosting provider. If you don’t have hosting, we can host your website for you at a competitive price with an SSL certificate included as standard (an SSL certificate is necessary for both security and SEO reasons).
Hopefully, you now have a better idea of the varied reasons your business needs an online presence. If you would like professional help to turn your idea into a fully-functioning, beautifully designed website, speak to our team of website developers today.
