Website design is evolving. Hosting is cheaper. Design is faster. Screen sizes are many. And your visitors are expecting a lot more from your small business website than in the past. You need to be at the forefront of the industry.

Small businesses need a website that not only sells the potential customer but also informs them.

1. Customer Journey Basics

Your small business is all about the customer. There’s a message you want to send to the people that visit your site and are considering your service. You also need to consider the visitors’ journey in the buying cycle.

A plumber, for example, may craft content that:

• Informs the reader through blog posts
• Educates the reader
• Offers a solution to the visitor

You have to consider that the visitor may be a residential person who has a leaking pipe that needs to be fixed. But this visitor may also be a commercial contractor looking for a plumber to lay down all of the piping in the firehouse’s new addition.

The person may be ready to buy, or they may want to be educated, or they may just want to learn more about your service.

And you also need to consider that you might not be the first, second or even third professional that has been researched and thoroughly vetted. Consider every page, the message you want to convey to the reader and what the goal of every page is along the customer journey.

2. Multiple Forms of Contact in Plain View

Small businesses require multiple forms of contact. You need to make it as easy as possible for the visitor to get in contact with you. And you can’t assume that the visitor will know to go right to the bottom of the page to make a contact.

Take a look at Lining Coating Solutions. You’ll notice that the small business has multiple forms of contact:

• Contact information in the footer
• Multiple forms on pages
• Social media icons
• Contact Us page

Visitors are lazy. Don’t expect them to dig far to be able to find your contact information. If you make it easier to contact your business, you’ll convert more leads.

3. Call-to-Actions

Visitors aren’t just lazy, they also need guidance. When a visitor lands on your site, they need direction on what to do next. The key most important thing is to guide the visitor to take the next steps to make a sale.

A call-to-action can be:

• Contact us today for an instant quote at 555-555-5555.
• Fill out the form below to have us contact you back on pricing.
• Call us at 555-555-5555 to discuss your electrical needs.

Tell your audience what they need to do next.

4. Follow the Best Practices

We’re in 2018. This means that you have to have a lot of the basics down before you even open your site to the world. This means:

• Pay attention to site speed and improve it.
• Your site needs to be responsive.
• Analytics need to be in place.
• SEO needs to start with on-page best practices.
• Make payment easy with shopping carts and multiple payment options.
• Keep your design simple.
• Fast, reliable hosting is cheap and easy to find – use it.
• Make sure all of your content is mobile-friendly.

If you follow the basics, you’ll be well on your way to worrying less about retention and more about converting your visitors and learning more about their behavior through split-testing.