As a diverse small business owner, founder, or creative, building a website that is more than just a website is crucial for success in today's digital world. Despite the emergence and dominance of social media, websites are still incredibly valuable for businesses, and investing in your online epicenter can bring a lot of value to your brand.
In this blog post, we'll explore why building a website that works harder for your business is important and how you can do it, even with limited resources.
Why Websites Are Still Pivotal in the Digital World
When the internet first became popular, many people thought that social media profiles would replace websites. However, websites are still not only relevant but pivotal, especially when one considers that relying solely on social media profiles means you're dependent on the social media company. There's no telling when they could change their policies or go out of business, leaving you without an online presence. There have been countless situations when a company loses money or stops being able to reach their audience/customers due to a policy change or being blocked by the social media company. Investing in your own website means you have control over your online epicenter, and you can use it to build your brand and connect with your customers in new and meaningful ways.
Read more about the latest advancements in technology here: The Future is Now: Exploring the Latest Developments in Technology for Diverse Small Business Owners and Creatives
Read more about why investing in your digital infrastructure in general is so important: Why Investing in Digital Infrastructure is Crucial for Small Businesses during Economic Recession and How to Start Doing So
Making Your Website Work Harder for Your Business
Most people have a limited view of what a website can be, seeing it mostly as just a place with basic pages like an about page or a contact page. However, there's an opportunity today to make websites work harder for your business, and it's easier to do now because we have more advanced tools that are both easier to use and more affordable. Of course, you still have to invest and you may still need technical assistance, but you can do so much more with a website with so much less.
At Rita XYZ, we specialize in helping brands think creatively and strategically about how to make a website work harder for them. From telling your company’s unique story to delivering more value to your audience and customers, from building community to e-commerce, there's so much you can do with your website. And these days, you’re not limited to the capabilities of the web platform itself, you’re also able to integrate other tools and services that help your website work even harder for you. These are just some general introductory ideas, but how do you get to that point? Below we’ll give you some tips for how to start thinking about maximizing your website to meet your business goals and the needs of your audience and customers.
Tips for Maximizing Your Website
Here are some tips to help you maximize your website:
1. Start with clear goals: Determine what you want your website to achieve, and make sure it's reflected in your design and content. Ironically enough, don’t think about this in a technical context. Simply think generally: what are your business goals and what role do you want your website to play in helping you achieve those goals?
2. Make sure your website is user-friendly: At the end of the day, no matter what you do will always revolve around how well you execute. If you have an existing website, have someone do a heuristic evaluation and perhaps even engage in some usability testing to get an understanding of how your website is doing. You always want to make sure your website is easy to navigate, fast-loading, and mobile-optimized.
3. Tell your story and build community: Use your website to thoughtfully and thoroughly tell your story and build a community around your brand. As far as telling your story, your website is completely yours, so you never have to worry about losing the place that houses your full story. As far as building a community, the place that houses your full story is the perfect place to build a community around your brand as everything is in full context. You can do this by doing things like adding a blog, starting an email newsletter, hosting events, and other initiatives.
4. Offer tangible value: Again, a website can be so much more than a collection of basic pages like an about page or a contact page. Use your website to deliver tangible value to your audience or customers, whether it's through free offerings or paid products. A common practice is to engage your audience or customers with free offerings such as content or resources that showcase your expertise and value that will further convince them to be a part of your community or eventually convert.
5. Consider investing in e-commerce: If you have products or services you can sell, consider adding an e-commerce component to your website to reach a wider audience and increase revenue. Even if you already sell through other platforms like Instagram or Facebook, you want to have a store you fully control and know will never go away.
6. Utilize data and learn from and listen to your users: As passionate as you may be about your business, creative initiative, and website, what you soon realize after managing a website is that your website becomes less and less about you and more and more about your user. Using data is crucial to understanding your users, how they’re interacting with your product, and how you can make improvements to keep them happy and coming back. You can use data to track your website traffic and engagement, bounce rates, common devices, points of entry, and where users are coming from and use it to inform your strategy and make improvements.
7. The epicenter of an interconnected web: Don’t forget to connect all of the pieces together. The website should methodically bring people into your brand’s ecosystem. Prioritize actions that will keep people connected to your brand like email newsletter sign up. Then consider linking them to your social media accounts at the right moments. Similarly, use your social media accounts to drive traffic back to your brand’s epicenter, your website. Eventually, you’ll want to create a thoughtful customer journey map that ties everything together.
8. Seek expert help: If you're not sure where to start or how to make your website work harder for you and your business, seek the help of an expert. Hiring a web designer, web developer, or website expert can help you make informed decisions and achieve your goals. You can also reach out to us for all of your digital needs!
Don't Miss Out on Maximizing Your Website
With all of that said, building a website that works harder for your business is crucial for success in today's digital world. By thinking creatively and strategically about your online epicenter, you can reach new audiences, build your brand, and connect with your customers in new and meaningful ways. Don't miss out on the opportunity to maximize your website and make it work harder for your business.
