Running a successful business in this day and age means setting up and maintaining a successful website. Having an online presence has become vital over the last few years, and keeping on top of your game means staying on top of what’s current. By setting up and running your own business, you are opening your business up to a wider audience especially since 61% of global internet users search for products and services online. Have a look at the following steps to see how you can run a successful online business.
Starting Up Your Website
1. Get Promoting On Social Media
Even before you’ve setup your website and it is live, you can start promoting the business, products or services on social media. By promoting your business socially before setting up a website, you can start to establish your audience, build relationships and begin to grow your online presence.
2. Don’t Drag It Out
Don’t wait too long to launch your business, products or services online. If you’re promoting socially then don’t drag out the launch date, your audience will get bored and go and find a website that’s already been launched.
3. Listen To Customers
If a customer or potential customer goes out of their way to contact you, they want to be heard. Particularly if they contact you via Facebook or Twitter, it’s likely that they’ll want their comment to be seen by others too. Listen to what they have to say and respond to them. Listen to their criticisms and good reviews, they could help you improve as a business.
4. Don’t Set Vastly High Expectations
If you’re promoting your small business, products or services online and setting the expectations incredibly high, you’re more likely to drive potential customers away then gain any. It’s better to overwhelm your visitors than to underwhelm them.
5. Write Compelling Copy
The only way your website is going to be successful is if it keeps people there. If the content is vague and boring, customers will click away. However, if you write good copy, it will not only keep visitors on your page but it will encourage people to buy your products or services.
6. Be Different
Your website needs be suitable for the industry you’re in, so make sure you do lots of competitor research and find out all the good and bad aspects of other businesses in the same industry. Consider where their websites could improve and make yours better. Stand out, be different, it will make your website and general online presence have that edge on similar businesses.
The Ingredients Of A Good Business Website
7. A Call To Action
You need to let visitors know what the website has to offer, and make it easy for them to find a way to contact you. According to a study, 70% of websites have no call to action, and 68% of websites have no email address on their homepage, which means if you do these things you’re already better than 70% of other websites out there.
8. Good Design
By hiring a designer you are ensuring that your website will be designed to a good standard and it will look more professional than if you tried to design it yourself. Visitors are more likely to stay on a website if it is visually appealing, and the longer they stay on the more likely they are to buy a product or service.
9. Optimised For The Web
Your website should have Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) applied to it so that it ranks in Google and can be easily found when users type in a phrase related to your business.
10. Optimised For The User
Your site needs to be optimised for the user too, which means it has good, relevant content and it is easy to navigate around. 76% of users said the most important factor of the design of a website was that it made it easy to find what they want.
11. Analytics Tracker
By tracking analytics you can track customers reach, habits and needs, which helps you to better establish an audience. It also helps you to recognise and make on site improvements.
12. Quality Social Links
Social links drive more traffic to a site and help to build an online presence alongside your website. Social links also indicate a more trustworthy website to the user.
13. Quality backlinks
Quality backlinks from good sources make a site more trustworthy to search engines like Google, which helps them to rank higher in search results.
14. Responsive Web Design
When a website is designed responsively, it means that it can be used on more than one device, such as mobile devices like phones and tablets. A responsive design means it can be accessed more easily by a wider range of people.
Stick to these simple ingredients and the result will be an excellent online presence. If you need any additional advice, contact DLR Accountants or visit our site.
