7 steps plan to a successful website for a small business

The purpose of a marketing website for your business is not to have it for the sake of being present online. For every entrepreneur and small business owner, the website should be a 24/7 online sales rep.

There are a dozen helpful articles but they do not cover all to-dos. So take this post as a master plan of a successful small business website in detail.

Let's dive in.

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Identify your small business website goals

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Instead of just saying "Change your business," set specific goals like increasing leads by 20% or boosting online sales by 15%. This helps track progress and measure success.

1. If you haven't already, define your target audience. That will answer the following:
2. Will your target audience reach out to you over the phone, website, or social media?
3. Who are you trying to reach with your website?
4. Do you want to inform people or do you want them to be able to buy your products on the website?
5. Outline key actions you want visitors to take. Do you want them to contact you, subscribe to a newsletter, or buy your products?
6. Understanding their needs and online behavior will help you make better design choices.
7. So how does this tell you what you need to do further? Below, we'll map the purpose with a specific goal. Your job is just to choose what feels right.

• Goal: Sell more products -Showcase the products and add eCommerce functionality

• Goal: Attract more leads. -Create an Ebook or something that will be very helpful to the target audience and add a contact form

• Goal: Get more clients. - Create a contact form and advertise

• Goal: Gain a bigger subscriber base. - Create subscription forms or processes

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Watch and learn from your competitors

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Before you existed on the market, there was somebody else doing something similar as you do. Analyzing your competitor's content will give you a brief of how you have to create the content. They already tested some tactics and strategies. Analyze what are they doing well in terms of design, content, and user experience. Are there any gaps you can do better?

However, copying is out. What you need to do is to deliver plagiarism-free content and design that represents your brand.

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Picking a domain name

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Your domain name should be your brand's name, or if it is not free, something very close. When you choose your domain name, say it out loud and see if you can remember it immediately. There's too much information people consume every day. They don’t have the time to remember all those confusing and long names.

Make it with 3-4 syllables or under 15 characters.

Another thing that you have to pay attention to is to keep it unique and brandable. You don’t want to use a trademark name, do you? Also, it would be very easy to stand out in people’s minds when using an original domain name.

Domains also have authority. Search engine optimization has a great impact on it. And before we go and talk about this connection, let's see what goes before SEO.

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Website sitemap, wireframes, features, and content development

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If you are not a web designer, making your small business website alone might take some time. And if it takes you less time than expected, it is probably a mess.

First, we recommend making a list of the features you want on the website. Do you want to have a content form, subscribe form, image sliders, job board, or e-commerce functionality? Do you want a testimonial list?

The second step is to define what pages are necessary to build. And here's some help of the main pages every marketing website should have:

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• Home page, or the page people land on when they type your website domain (eg. ours: uixlabs.com).
• About page - this is the page where you tell a bit more about your business. It is important because people check how legit your brand is when they see the About section on your website.
• Contact page - this is important for every type of website.
• Privacy Policy & Terms and Conditions - don't forget the legal part of the online presence.
• Blog page: Why people create blogs is to inform their audience a bit more of the things they do and of course, for SEO purposes.
• Showcase page - in e-commerce this is your products list page, in other businesses, your showcase of products or simply your portfolio

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Got the list? Great! Now let's turn to actual website work.

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Pick CMS (Content Management System) that is easiest to use and has lots of documentation

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The most popular way of building your website alone is using CMS. A content management system or CMS is software that helps you create your website. I’ll name one that’s already familiar to you: WordPress.

WordPress and Webflow are the most popular builders and the best. Both have a very supportive community and good documentation. However, for WordPress, there are lots of plugins. It’s very flexible for building a website for a small business.

If you are a complete beginner, we recommend you choose WordPress because it has a gentler learning curve. It also has plugins called page builders that will ease the work even more.

Quick guide of what you need to do to get WordPress up and running.

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1. Set your domain on a hosting, we recommend Siteground because it is fast and very intuitive
2. On it, you will have to install WordPress.
3. Choose a theme. Ocean WP is a free and great theme that goes well with Elementor. Elementor has a free and pro version. We recommend choosing the Divi theme by Elegant Themes which is a theme + builder, all in one. It also comes with lifetime access and no yearly or monthly payments.

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There’re so many developers that use Divi, and sometimes they give their layouts for free. You can reuse them, or see them as an example.

When you have everything planned and ready, we should do the content optimized for people to find you. That's what makes one small business website successful.

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Do at least basic SEO

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An optimized website means you've identified the relevant terms people search for to find your services or products. Relevant keywords with search volume and low competition are the ones that will bring traffic the easiest.  Try to integrate them naturally into your content and website titles.

How do you find these keywords?

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1. If you have a budget, navigate to Ahrefs or Semrush and search for terms that describe what you sell. If you don't have a budget, Google's Keyword Planner is also a great way to go
2. Choose keywords that are specifically for your work which are high volume, that you will use to describe your business. And keywords with low competition and high/medium search volume to bring audience faster.

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You have the keywords, what now? When you have keywords, you'll have to set them for a specific page and/or blog post. Then, develop the content around it.

For SEO, it is not only about the content but also the speed of the website, responsiveness, and security.

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• A good SEO requires fast-loading website speed.
• Have an SSL certificate to ensure the user’s data on your site.
• Have a mobile-friendly website.

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And lastly, use high-quality backlinks that lead to websites with relevant content. (or the opposite, external sites with backlinks that lead to your website)

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Best case scenario: Find a team expert and get your website done

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If you are on a budget, it is great that there are tools that help you make the website alone. But there's always something that is not in all guides on the internet. Building a successful small business website is a complex project. Give it to someone that love and know how to do it.

You can always reach out to us ♥ Make the first impression great.

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