5 Essentials Every Small Business Website Needs in 2024

Not sure what to include on your small business website? Here are the essential elements that are pivotal to having a productive website to promote your small business.

An Engaging Homepage

Your homepage is likely the first page people land on when they visit your website. Making it a key page in the success or failure of your website. Research shows you have less than a second to make an impression, good or bad, and for visitors to decide whether to stay or leave.  

That short window of time proves that a well-designed and engaging homepage is crucial to securing leads and sales from your small business online. 

What to add to your homepage?

  • A prominent heading that describes what you do clearly and concisely. Visitors will instantly know the services provided and encourage them to stick around. 
  • A brief description of who you are, what you do, and where you do it. Don’t make us crawl around your website looking for these details. 
  • List your services with links to more details on each of your offerings.
  • Add one or two reviews from previous customers and link to a testimonials page.

A Services Page

Your services page is an important part of your website. It’s your sales pitch to potential customers where you attract, inform and sell your services.

Use this page to describe your services, answer questions that customers are likely to ask, show proof of your ability with reviews, and provide ways to contact you.

Case Studies and Testimonials

Trust is key when selling your products and services online. You can garner trust with visitors by including reviews from customers and case studies to showcase the work you do.

Highlighting social proof and statistics can be a great way to build credibility with your website visitors. If they can see that a 100 or a 1000 people have already used your services it can help push them to make the commitment to hire you.

Multiple Contact Points

You could have the most amazing design and comprehensive content describing your services but you need to make easy for people to to take action when they are interested.  

Provide a variety of ways for them to get in touch with you.  A phone number, email address, contact form or even the ability to book a consultation online.  The benefit of providing different options is that not everyone likes picking up the phone to contact a business. A contact form or email address means you don’t miss out on that enquiry.  Online enquiries also allow people to contact you outside your normal working hours.  

Links to connect with you on social media can provide customers with the option to get in touch with you on their favourite social platform too. 

Place contact information in visible locations. I suggest at the top of page, in the footer and a dedicated contact page.

Search Engine Optimisation 

In order to get your small business website found on search engines you’ll need to work on optimisation. Unfortunately, it’s not the case of ‘build it and they will come’ when websites are concerned. Websites need to be optimised so the pages are picked up and listed on the results when people search for relevant keywords. 

Optimising for local search is especial important when you are a small business. The local community can be a large portion of customer base so you need to be found by them.

Ways to optimise your website:

  • Set up or claim your google my business page
  • Check all your business details are correct online
  • Improve the internal links within the pages 
  • Optimise page titles, meta descriptions, and content
  • Add your location, phone, opening hours and add a google map
  • Add your details to online directories
  • Ask previous customers to review you on Google, social media etc
  • Create new content

There you have it, my top 5 essentials to include your small business website.  Is your website performing well for your business? If not, it might be time to make improvements or to redesign your website to turn it into a productive marketing and sales tool in 2024. Check out my websites for small business services and get in touch if you want to arrange a free consultation.

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