Top Web Design Tricks for Small Businesses
Running a small business has never been easy, but with the advent and subsequent explosion in popularity of the Internet, it’s become even harder. Whether you’re a web only business or operate out of a brick and mortar location, getting your website to drive traffic, convert customers and get found on Google can be an immense struggle.
As one of Newcastle’s leading web design agencies, we’ve helped countless people on smaller budgets create top business websites. Over time, we’ve learned some incredible tips that can make any small business website better and in this short article, we’re going to share three of them. Let’s take a look.
Responsive design is essential.
Creating a website used to be a relatively simple process. You’d make something that looked incredible whilst viewed on a landscape screen and leave it at that. Then things got complicated with the arrival of smartphones and tablets as we created dedicated mobile websites to display on these smaller screens. Now? Well, it’s simple again – with responsive web design. Responsive web design means that your website reflows perfectly to fit any screen it’s displayed on. By going responsive you save money on multiple designs and present your customers with a unified design across all platforms.
Local, not broad, SEO.
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) might well exist somewhere between science and art, but there are ways to make it work for you. As a small business, you’re working to a limited budget, so why try to take on the big boys? By tailoring your SEO for a local market, you’ll save yourself a good deal of money and appear at the top of Google for local customers – something that can’t be sniffed at. So, instead of optimising around words like ‘web design’, try for ‘web design north east’ instead. The same goes whether you’re a butcher, baker or candlestick maker. Be specific!
Encourage interaction.
Everyone has a contact page on their website, but few actually draw any real leads from them. So, why not encourage that interaction through the form of a scroll triggered box on your website? Scroll triggered boxes are becoming increasingly popular online, in fact, you’ve probably seen one today! They’re those boxes which appear in the middle of the screen when you’re scrolling down a page or moussing over to leave. Sometimes they ask you for an email address, sometimes they encourage you to call. Other times they’ll offer a special one-time discount. Research has shown that scroll boxes dramatically increase engagement levels on websites of all sizes.
