In this article we will go over the top 10 things that you need to have on your website if you want your small business to be competitive in the digital world.
1. An Attention Grabbing Headline
This can simply be how you help your customers summarized into a phrase. For example “Compramos carros para el basurero”. Ideally you should use the headline to show off what makes your business unique and it should be specific. For example instead of “Appliances for Sale” say “Affordable Used Appliances Delivered Straight To Your Door”.
2. A Picture That Is Relevant To Your Small Business
The first image that the customer sees on your site is the most important and should show them exactly what they were looking for. It should relate to your headline and be relevant to the reason why the customer landed on your site. For example in the junk cars example putting a picture of a used car lot would be much more appropriate than a picture of the newest sports car. Your audience will likely see this picture even before they read the headline so make sure it makes sense or else they will bounce from your page.
3. Call to Action in the Upper Right Hand Corner of Your Website
The ideal place to put your CTA is in the top right hand corner. This is because our eyes tend to gravitate towards the upper right quadrant when we first see a website. Examples of good CTAs that you could put here are “Call Now”, “Get Started”, “Sign Up”, “Buy Now”, etc. You get bonus points by choosing a color that makes it stand out from the rest of the background.
4. Real Pictures of Your Business
It is important that you have real pictures of your business on your website and not stock photos. This is because the whole purpose of a small business website is to get the customer to trust you enough for them to come into your business. It’s much more difficult to trust a business that hides behind stock photos. Having at least a couple of real photos even if you have to take them on your phone will make a big difference.
5. Your Services
You have to tell your customers what you do. Do not assume that they can tell what you do based off of your name and pictures. Be clear in describing your services and do not leave anything up to the imagination. On the other hand, you also want to be sure not to advertise too many services. A lot of small business owners want to pile a bunch of services on their customers in order to show that they do a lot of things. Often this just leaves their customers confused. It’s best to only advertise 1-3 services on your website.
6. Locations
For small businesses it is extremely important that you put what locations you service on your website. Your customers are often not willing to travel long distances so you need to tell them upfront where you are located.
7. Your Ideal Customer
You don’t have to explicitly state this, but it is a good thing to keep in mind. It seems counterintuitive but you do want to try and address who will and who will not benefit from your products and services. This will prevent unnecessary headaches with customers that are not a good fit for your business.
8. What Languages You Conduct Business In
This one is very important for many of the small businesses that we work with. Having the ability to speak both English and Spanish is a big plus if you are marketing to a primarily Hispanic customer base. Customers may even pick your business over a competitor if they feel more comfortable speaking Spanish. An extra tip would be to make your entire website in Spanish if a majority of your customers are Spanish speaking. We can help you with this!
9. Business Hours
Don’t just leave your customers guessing when it comes to your business hours. These need to be displayed clearly on your website so your customers can decide when it is a good time to come by.
10. Contact Info
It is essential that your customers know how to contact you. We suggest including a phone number and email so that they have the choice to contact you in whichever way they prefer. Contact info can also include links to all relevant social media pages as well as a contact us form.
Honorable Mention – Price
It’s controversial whether or not you want to put your prices right on your site, which is why we included this as an honorable mention. However, if your customers are very cost conscious you may want to put your prices so that they know you are affordable.
Hopefully this article helped you get a better idea of the information you should have on your small business website. If you are having trouble deciding what types of digital marketing your small business should be doing we created this FREE guide to help you get started on the path towards digital marketing success.
