Use Your Website to Make Running Your Small Business Easier
Updated: 4 days ago
Running a small business means managing a lot at once, and your website should be taking work off of your plate. With the right systems in place, your site can take on parts of your sales, marketing, customer communication, and everyday operations.
This post shares website best practices to consider when building or updating your site, with ideas for content and functionality that can make your job easier.
Build Recognition With Consistent Branding
Your logo is the unique stamp of your business and should be placed in both the header and footer, with a link back to your homepage. This keeps your branding visible and provides an easy way to return home from anywhere on the site.
Much of your website’s color may come from photography and imagery, but any additional colors incorporated into the design should coordinate with your established brand palette and hex codes. Fonts should be pulled from those used in your logo or paired with complementary fonts, with consistent styling for headers, subheaders, and paragraph text throughout the site.
Help People Find and Use Your Website With SEO and Accessibility
SEO and accessibility work together to make a website easier to understand, navigate, and use. Proper heading structures, descriptive alt text, clear links, organized content, and mobile-friendly design help search engines interpret your website while supporting accessibility compliance and making content available to a wider audience. Strong usability and useful functionality build on that foundation, creating a more inclusive website that is also better structured to perform in search.
Keep Your Website Fresh With Social Media Integration
Social media can be integrated directly into your website by installing a feed that automatically pulls in new posts as you publish them. This keeps fresh content appearing on your website without having to manually update and republish the site each time. It can also support SEO by keeping your website connected to current, relevant content. Social media icons can be linked in your footer so visitors can access your profiles from any page of your website.
Say It Once and Use It Again With a Blog
A blog gives you a permanent place to publish company updates, industry information, frequently asked questions, and other useful resources. Instead of communicating the same information repeatedly, you can direct people back to the post and reuse it in email marketing, social media, client communications, and other marketing efforts.
Introduce Your Business With Video
A welcome video gives visitors a quick introduction to your business, who you serve, and what they can expect from working with you. Your homepage is a great place to feature this type of video, helping visitors quickly understand your business while supporting the sales and onboarding process by answering common questions and explaining what comes next.
Build Trust With Reviews and Testimonials
Testimonials give potential customers another source of information about your business beyond what you say about yourself. Reviews can be integrated directly from Google to automatically pull onto your website, while selected testimonials can be incorporated throughout the design, for example, in a slider or reel, alongside a specific service, or near related content. How they are displayed can be customized based on where they are most relevant.
Build a Contact List With Forms and Email Marketing
Forms give website visitors a way to share their contact information, whether they are submitting an inquiry, requesting information, or subscribing to your emails. This gives visitors who may not be ready to make a purchase another way to engage with your business. These contacts can feed directly into your CRM and email marketing tools, allowing you to organize leads and continue communicating with people who have already shown interest in your business.
Make It Easier for Customers to Pay With Payment Processing
Payment processing can be built into your website in different ways depending on how your business gets paid. Some popular options include:
Online stores to sell physical and digital products
Scheduling and booking to accept payment for appointments and services
Events to sell tickets and manage registration
Bundles and subscriptions for one-time and recurring payments
If your website is intended to generate revenue, customers need a clear way to pay through it. Having payments connected to your website can reduce the number of steps between someone finding your business and becoming a paying customer.
Give Customers Access to More Through a Members Area
A members area gives customers or clients a dedicated space to manage their relationship with your business. Depending on your business, they can access things like account information, purchase history, subscriptions, or private resources. Linking the members area from your website header gives returning customers an easy place to log in and stay connected with your business.
The best website setup will look different for every small business. Start with what will have the biggest impact on how your customers interact with you and how you manage the business behind the scenes. From there, you can continue adding and refining features as your needs change.
Order a professional website review to receive a customized checklist of recommended updates and next steps for your site.
