JIFFIWEBHELP

  Place strategic calls to action. CTA buttons tend to perform best when they match the information on the page. For example, a “buy now” button makes sense on a product page, but a “contact us to learn more” button might be more appropriate on the “about us” page. Similarly, a page listing customer reviews might have a button that takes the reader to the available plans and pricing. Automate speed improvements. Set up as many automated speed improvements as you can. If you use a content management system (CMS), installing the right plugins will cache parts of your site so visitors don’t need to download anything more than once. For WordPress users, Zalewski recommended WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache, which compresses files and allows visitors to browse your site more quickly. Some of the more technical aspects of caching and compressing files may require a web development partner if you’re not particularly tech savvy. Avoid stock photos. Tacky stock photography is the quickest way to turn a great site into a mediocre one. If you’re looking for photos to use on your page, it’s best to use a picture of your actual team or office. Pheil added that high-quality images of the products increase sales, so invest in good photos of the products or services you sell.

  TipTip: Build informative and engaging web pages that offer a positive user experience. Strategically place CTAs to encourage users to engage in specific behaviors. Set up your payment system (if applicable). While this step won’t apply to all business websites, companies that want to offer the option for customers to pay online will need to integrate electronic payment systems with their websites. The easiest way to do this is through e-commerce software or small business credit card processing solutions. Many web hosts offer an in-house shopping cart or integration with e-commerce programs. Do some research to make sure you get a solution that’s easy to work with and flexible enough to meet your needs now and in the future.

  Did you know?Did you know? E-commerce businesses need to make payment processing available on their sites, whether through their e-commerce software or a third-party processor. Test and publish your website. Before announcing that your site is live on the web, make sure it works on all major browsers, like Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Safari and Chrome. Click through each page and feature on every browser to ensure images show up, links are correct and the format looks smooth. This will take some time, but the effort you put in now will save you future complaints from visitors who can’t access certain features. Also, make sure that your website displays properly on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. This step should not be overlooked, as Google and other search engines have migrated to mobile-first indexing, which prioritizes the performance of the mobile version of your website when it comes to search engine rankings. Another important feature to incorporate from the very beginning is an analytics program. By setting this up before the website is live, you can iron out any issues and coordinate a proper setup, Shaoolian said. Once the website is live, you can monitor page performance and determine why a certain page is successful or unsuccessful based on your analytics.

  “You can look at which of your marketing campaigns are showing the most conversions, and examine any metrics such as city, browser, etc. to shed some light on how your audience is interacting with your site,” Shaoolian said. “If you … implement this [after] the site goes live, you’ll miss out on valuable data and have no way of seeing which elements of your site are successful or unsuccessful right from the start.” Market your website on social media. Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Pinterest is the best way to increase your audience reach and alert customers to what’s going on with your company. Whenever you update your website, post about it on your social media outlets, but balance that with genuine, nonpromotional engagement. Also include links to your social media on your website. The most common places to do this are the footer or the ancillary bar (the extra menu in the top right that often holds login or contact links). Learn more about social media for business in our marketer’s guide. Invest in search engine optimization (SEO).

Problems

  Submitting your website to major search engines will help direct potential leads to your page, as will deploying a strong SEO strategy across your site. Shaoolian said that defining title tags, meta descriptions, and Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) that are relevant to your company and aspects of your industry can boost your rankings in search engines for the products or services you’re trying to market. “Building relevant keywords into your content from the very first phases of your website, and having a strong focus on SEO from website launch, will help you generate traffic early on,” he said. As you build your business website, these important on-site SEO tactics can help you improve your ability to move up the ranks. (There are also off-site SEO tactics you can pursue). Choose the right keywords. Select keywords that are relevant to your business and that your potential customers are searching for online. Visit our guide to SEO small business tools to find a solution that can help you identify, analyze and track these keywords.

 Publish fresh content. Regularly publishing on a blog, adding to your website and updating your content all signal to search engines that your site is relevant for the chosen keywords. Choose topics that are relevant to your business and exciting for your industry to position yourself and your business as thought leaders in the space. Place internal and external links. Internal links are the links on your website pages that lead to other pages on your site, while external links are your links to other popular, high-authority websites. Place these links strategically throughout your website. Make sure that the links make sense, fit the context and provide value to the reader; otherwise, linking may count against you. Optimize images. Compress images so they don’t slow down your site’s loading time. Take the same approach with video, making sure that any clips load quickly and don’t slow down how your site moves overall. Images’ metadata, such as tags and captions, is also an opportunity to work in your keywords and tell search engines what the images are about. Maximize your site speed. Pages should load as quickly as possible; within a few seconds is ideal. You can use free site speed checkers such as Google’s PageSpeed Insights to see if your site is performing optimally.

  Maintain your site. Staying relevant is important, so update your website frequently with blog posts on current industry events, new products and offers, and company news to keep visitors coming back to the site. You should also check at least monthly to ensure your software and all add-ons are up to date. Pheil said that if your software is not up to date, it’s in danger of being hacked, even if your website host’s security is strong. If you don’t have time to do this yourself, delegate the task to a trusted employee or a freelance website manager. Starting a website for your business is a low-cost investment that can help you establish credibility and reach a wider customer base than you ever could through traditional marketing techniques. If you keep your website updated with fresh, current content and are quick to address technical issues, you’ll never have to worry about “not existing” to your current and future clients.

  Key takeawayKey takeaway: Keep your site up to date with fresh content and timely information to ensure it remains professional and top of mind for your audience. Business website FAQs How much does a business website cost? According to research by Mark Brinker, the average cost of a small business website ranges from $4,000 to $10,000. The reason for such a wide range has to do with the type of business involved and the amount of work the business owner is willing to do. The difference between taking your own pictures and hiring a photographer can be a few hundred dollars. The same can be said for professional copywriting for web content and so on. How long does it take to create a business website? Website creation can range from days to months, but if you’re looking for an average, we can turn to DreamHost, a leading web host provider for small businesses, and they say the typical website building process runs between two and four months.