For every small business, a great website is essential for your company’s success. Today, a website is typically the first, primary, and sometimes the only exposure a potential customer has with a company. Yet many organizations either do not have a website or leave their websites in a state of neglect, with poorly designed functionality, out-of-date information, and a negative experience in the mind of a prospect that came to the website looking to do business. Whether you are looking to build a new website or make your current site more effective, there are some key steps to take to help your business website compete in the online marketplace.

1. Your website should be easy to find and to navigate. Look at your website the way a customer looks at it. If it is frustrating for you to find what you are looking for on your own website, then it’s even more frustrating for them. Prospects and customers will most likely not stick around for long to try and make a meaningful online connection. To improve the user experience on your website, visit the site yourself and ask yourself the following:
   • Does each page have a clear title, and a clear explanation of its purpose and benefit to the user?
   • Is your phone number easy to read an on every page of your website?
   • Does each page have simple, understandable navigation that will take you to the main areas of the site, without hitting a dead-end or having important information that is difficult to find?
   • Is there a clear, compelling value proposition on each page, as well as a solid, motivational call to action?
   • Have you simply checked your site for correct grammar and punctuation, and have you tested all links, addresses and phone numbers for accuracy?
   The content should be crisp and engaging. That means that it should be on-target to communicate clear differentiation and a straightforward message. Each page should have a well-defined purpose and try to avoid extraneous details. Links to other areas of the site should help in driving cross-selling opportunities and reinforce the overall value of the website. Most importantly, there should be a strong call to action and an opportunity to reach a representative of the company on every page.
2. Make your website mobile friendly. The majority of internet traffic comes from mobile devices. With the change in the way people access the internet changes, it is vital for your website to be mobile responsive. Mobile friendly websites also rank higher in search engines. Google and other major search engines give a page rank boost to websites that are mobile friendly. If your site isn’t mobile friendly, you’re missing out on valuable internet traffic.
3. Optimize your website for search engines. Search engine optimization is critical to your business website. Your website competes with websites that have similar content. The better your website design and content is, the higher your site will show up on search engine result pages. Everything on your website should be optimized so that search engines can form the correlation between an internet search and your business website. This will help to push more internet traffic will come your way.
4. Online Marketing. How you market your business online involves the use of different tools to engage the prospect interactively, and the use of tools beyond your website. An active presence on social media will give your business website a higher visibility on popular search engines. Additionally, adding videos and interactive product demonstrations to your business website will also help increase your traffic flow.
5. Close the sale. Marketing tests have proven that strong, clear calls to action increase sales. Your business website is just like a sales person. Whether it directly sells products and services or your buyers must contact you to make a purchase, make sure you include strong, clear calls to action on every page. Tell your visitors to buy now, call now, respond now, act now, etc.

At one time, simply having a business website would suffice. Today, your business website serves a number of different functions, the most important of which is to convince a potential customer to buy your products or use your services. While building an effective business website may seem like a daunting task, you don’t have to tackle it alone. Your Ideacom Network telecom provider can help you create and maintain an amazing website.