Generate More Leads With Your Small Business Website
As a small business owner, you’ve got a lot of responsibilities on your plate. You have to run a business from all angles and make sure everything operates smoothly and efficiently to ensure the success of your investment. Every detail is important—especially those minor ones that are critical to your long-term success.Your small business website is one of these small, yet critical factors that’s frequently overlooked by some small establishments.
Many owners often tell themselves that other tasks are more important than being a webmaster, or that having a website is unnecessary because they’re a local business with local customers. And while these excuses might make you feel better about not having a
website for your business, they’re simply covering the fact that you need one.
Visibility and Presence
When you want to find a local coffee shop or a place to grab a bite to eat nearby, how do you do it? If you’re like most people, it’ll take mere seconds to punch your request into your smartphone to get the answers you’re looking for. Not surprisingly, these answers are brought to you by Google (or another search engine), where having a web presence is paramount.
Visibility and presence are far and away the most important reasons to have a website for your small business. Showing up in local search results, having your data raked and delivered to customers searching for applicable establishments, and having a digital presence for information for your local customers means being seen in the digital age.
- Search engine optimization (SEO) can catapult your visibility even further into the spotlight. Optimizing your website for location and keywords means showing up first when customers are searching for businesses like yours.
Better Customer Service
Along with having great visibility online, your website is going to function as your automated
customer service solution in a digital capacity. It’ll provide answers to customer questions, give people critical information about your establishment and will help them better understand what you have to offer them.
A website is also a touchpoint for communication. If your customers have questions or concerns, they’re going to visit your website to voice them directly to you. Or, if you have communications that every customer needs to see, a website is the best way to get the word out for all to see. Communication is key in good business, which means a website is your best answer to the question of how to foster it.
- Having business hours, contact information, address and location data, and more will all serve to make you and your business more accessible to searchers on the web.
Using Your Small Business Website for Marketing and Sales
Alongside being a customer service tool, your website can also function as a
marketing and sales tool. Use it to introduce promotions,
generate leads or drive traffic—a website is a platform for all stages of marketing and sales, making it a core component in your business’ overall marketability.
Your website can also be a medium for sales as well. Something as simple as offering digital gift cards for sale or selling advertisement space for other local business on your site can generate new revenue streams that add to your business’ success—even capturing leads that aren’t local to you!
Your Digital Face
Today, the digital world is just as real as the physical one, which means your business needs to exist in both spaces to stay relevant and successful. Your brick and mortar shop is enough to drive foot traffic, but it’ll need a website to ensure the digital doors to your business stay open and thriving.
If you don’t have a small business website already, it’s time to make it a priority. And, even if you do have a website, it might be worth reevaluating to ensure it’s giving you all of the critical benefits it should be. Consult with your
local AlphaGraphics digital marketing and web specialists today to learn how to best maximize your business’ website.