There’s more to a quality website than the basics of your business. A quality website can help you build your business and attract more customers, especially when you are fully virtual. Here are a few ways to enhance your website with engaging and interactive elements.

Offer Online Ordering

More than ever, customers are looking for ways to order online, especially food. If you have a restaurant, bar, cafe, or similar, you should offer online ordering on your site. Implementing an online order form is a great way to draw customers into a sale directly on your website. And even if you don’t want to go that complex, simply putting your menu online and telling customers on the site that you take online orders by phone or text can bring in huge amounts of business. Tip: Make sure this message is very easy to find, maybe as a banner, or above the fold on the homepage. Also, make sure your menu is easy to find from the homepage. The longer it takes a customer to find information, the quicker you lose them, so a quality website makes information accessible.

E-commerce & Shopping Carts

For stores that aren’t restaurants, shopping is shifting to online, so e-commerce is a must. Your website developer can create an online shop, shopping cart, and checkout for you so customers can order from you online. Even posting a partial inventory online can bring in more sales. Also, it’s a great way to keep track of your inventory. Tip: Use high-quality photos and reviews to spice up your e-commerce site and make it more attractive to shoppers.

Lead Generation

Every quality website should make use of contact forms. Contact forms help you gather leads who are interested enough to give you their information. It’s also an excellent way of gathering emails for e-marketing. Contact forms can generate a list of emails for you to contact through an email marketing campaign. Tip: You don’t have to limit yourself to a Contact Us page. You can place contact forms strategically throughout your site to target customers when they’re most interested, without making them click on a new page.

Fresh Content

Updating your website is a key way to draw in new customers and build a customer base. A stale website gets boring quickly, so add new pictures, update your inventory, post new blogs, and post the weekly specials or recent offers. This shows your customers that you have a quality website that is active and engaging, and encourages them to visit often for new information. Tip: Blog posts help your quality website's SEO; meanwhile, new offers/specials and blog posts are perfect content to cross-post on your social media.

Offer a Freebie

If your business offers services or consulting, giving a potential customer free tools, like a free template or a short e-book, builds trust and good will in them towards your business. Also, they get to see how much you actually know, and can have proven results that you are a valuable resource they want to pay more for. Tip: Put your freebie behind a contact form -- i.e. make them give you their name and email to download the freebie. This is another way to build that email list and send them a follow-up email.   Try out some (or all) of these methods and put your quality website to work for your business. You’ll see improved engagement, leads, and sales, and your business will grow thanks to your efforts. ----- S-FX.com Small Business Solutions is a boutique web design and technology consulting agency geared towards start-up businesses, small businesses and non-profit businesses.  We specialize in implementing low cost technology solutions to maximize efficiency and reduce business operating costs.

Every business needs a website. So it would follow that you should get one however you can, even if you “can’t afford” a professional website -- right? Wrong. A whole host of sites now offer the ability to create free sites -- but just because something is free doesn’t mean you should take it. Hotels offer free shampoo -- do you always use it? And when you do, do you feel as good as using the nice shampoo you bought for yourself? Restaurants always give you a free side of coleslaw -- do you actually eat it? Is it the same as getting a side you actually wanted? "Free" doesn't always equal “great,” and we’re going to explain why you shouldn’t invest any time in your free site.

6 Reasons Why Free Websites Are a Bad Idea

The templates you're using don't reflect your brand. The templates offered on these sites are simple and may look “minimalist” and appealing, but they’re just cookie-cutter designs that everybody else is using. It vaguely reflects your industry because other businesses in your niche have picked from the top three templates and used it for their own site, and now they all look the same. Set yourself and your brand apart with a customized, unique site that uses your colors, fonts, and image perfectly. Why should your business be like everybody else’s? They're very poorly coded. Badly coded sites make you virtually invisible to Google, as they don’t allow Google to properly index your site by getting the information it needs. Bad coding also slows down your site. They could have adverse effects on your site. Free websites often end up having poor performance. Many are not indexed by Google, which defeats any SEO efforts you had planned -- if the site even allows significant SEO. Also, the sites often have bad upkeep that leads to malware. These problems will cause you huge issues in the future, and you’ll end up needing a new site anyway. Save yourself the headache and invest in a site with good customer support and hosting. They often result in slow loading speeds. Slow-loading sites are a huge turn-off for visitors, who will click away from your site if it’s taking more than three seconds to load. If nobody visits your site, then why have one at all? It’s better to invest in a site that will load quickly and easily for your visitors and bring you the business you’re looking for. You’ll have an embarrassing domain. Free sites come with obvious domains like mybusiness.freewebsite.com, which any modern user can spot a mile away. These don’t look good for your business, and even if you do pay for a domain, it will usually cost you more than you’d pay for a domain normally. To make matters more, you also can’t set up your email with the domain either. Your business will have low credibility. Many of the issues with free websites can be summed up in this: you’ll lose credibility with your visitors (and even with Google). A website should reflect the best of you and offer your customers information, help, and a way to contact you or even buy. If they don’t even trust you, what good is your website doing for your business?   If you want a proper website that will impress, inform, and entertain your customers, hire professionals who will not only build a great website but also do regular maintenance. Your business will thank you. ----- S-FX.com Small Business Solutions is a boutique web design and technology consulting agency geared towards start-up businesses, small businesses and non-profit businesses.  We specialize in implementing low cost technology solutions to maximize efficiency and reduce business operating costs.  

A website should engage your current and potential customers the moment it loads, and for the entire time they stay on it. How can you tell if your website is boring? Look out for these five signs, and then start working with your web designer to fix them.

It takes forever to load.

If an internet user has to wait longer than 2 seconds for your page to load, they’re going to give up and click away. You’ve probably done the same thing. Web users nowadays expect things quickly, almost immediately. Nothing is more boring than waiting. If your site is too slow, talk to your web developer about optimizing your site.  

It isn’t answering any questions.

Your website content is just as important as how it looks. If your website isn’t providing any information or entertainment for your visitors, then they have no reason to be on your site. Make sure your content is, above all, answering their questions. What does your business do? Why do you do it? What hours are you open? What are your social media channels? How can they reach you? What are your products? How can they buy them? If your site doesn’t answer these, write some new copy and do a website redesign.  

It’s an old design.

Users can tell when a website is old. Websites from a decade ago have a very different outdated look to them, and users are all about the new. They will judge your business based on it, and they will definitely get bored of being on it. Refresh your website design with a designer who’s up on the latest trends and can give your site a new, modern feel.  

The colors are off.

Minimalism and simple design are in, but that doesn’t mean that every website should be black and white. The wrong colors will make your website less interesting to a visitor. If the call to actions don’t pop, they won’t do anything on your site. If your brand colors aren’t used, they may even forget it’s your site. Color is powerful, so don’t be afraid to use it to your advantage.  

There are no images or video.

A plain site can be very boring. The right images and/or video can change that. (And they count as good content.) They can inform or entertain as much as copy can, and they are excellent for converting visitors into customers as well. Although they aren’t 100% necessary, if your site has zero of either, consider putting more multimedia on your page. Just get an expert designer’s opinion to make sure you’re using the right kind and amount of them in the right places.   Making a website more engaging can be a simple task, and you’ll be amazed at what fast loading times, good copy, the right colors, and a fresh feel can do for your site -- and for your sales and conversions.

Running a successful business requires more than honing in on products that are hot and in-demand. Today, building an online presence and brand for your business is just as important as delivering high-quality items to shoppers. Understanding the importance of professional website design and why it matters for your business is essential to truly maximize your online reach and ability to generate profits and long-term revenue.

Why Good Web Design Matters

In the beginning of the internet era, developing a website required information and simplistic graphics to captivate its intended audience. Today, the internet has become more prevalent in our everyday lives than ever, making it an extremely appealing commodity for business owners and independent entrepreneurs alike. When you visit a website for the first time, you are left with an immediate impression and response based on the overall quality of the website's design and layout. If a website appears outdated, grainy, pixelated, or simply unrealistic, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain the attention and trust of your visitors. You only have one opportunity to make a positive and lasting impression on your website visitors, which is why it is so important to implement a layout design that is optimal for your business and brand.

Maximize Your Online Reach

Adding a new layout and design to your website is not only great for optics when targeting current and loyal customers, but it is also ideal to maximize your online reach. When you want to maximize your online reach and visibility, relaunching your site with a brand new look, feel, and design is imperative. A new website layout and design is one way to stand apart from your online competition while establishing your dominance and authority in the market and industry of your choosing. With a layout that is modern, attractive, and relevant, expand your ability to appeal to even more visitors and prospective customers from around the world in less time.

Fast Loading Times

Creating a new layout for your website and optimizing your site altogether is a way to increase your page's loading times. A fast-loading website is much more likely to retain the interest of visitors. If your website takes too long to load or if your website times out for visitors, you run the risk of losing potential sales or prospective customers. If a website does not load properly or fast enough, your visitors are likely to seek out an alternative website or supplier that is more responsive and easier to access.

Get Contacted in Less Time

While working to create a new layout and design for your website, consider a single page website. Single page solutions help attract new visitors without redirecting them to various pages of your website, potentially losing their interest in your services or products in the process. A single page website is a great way to promote your contact information along with your company's purpose and links to your products or eCommerce hub.

Blow Your Competition Away

Modern web design is not exclusively available for art gallery owners and graphic designers. When you want your business to stand out amongst your local and international competition, begin with rebuilding a presence and website for your company that is difficult to forget. Building a solid and loyal following while also showcasing your products using a modern website has never been easier than with updated and responsive design. Even if you are working in a highly competitive market it is still possible to outperform your toughest competition by establishing your business and brand with an updated and attractive online presence. With professional web design solutions and services, showcase your business, its brand, and the products or services you offer in a modern and aesthetically-pleasing manner. Using proper website design not only helps with building a professional online reputation, but it can be one of the quickest ways to garner followers while gaining the trust of new customers and prospective clients.

After an announcement earlier this year, the other day Google made official a “mobile-friendly” update to the way their search engine algorithms work. This is important. Granted, words like “algorithms” can tend to elicit an immediate groan from many of us, as the expectation that an annoyingly technical explanation is on its way immediately sets in. However, in all honesty, this one isn’t so bad. We’re gonna take a few words to talk about the responsive design philosophy behind Google’s big update, and why and how this update is going to affect as many as over 40 percent of existing Fortune 500 websites — and why it should affect your small business’s web strategy going forward, too.

Responsive Design: What Is It?

Responsive design is a website design principle that ensures a website is “mobile-friendly,” a.k.a., displays nicely on phones and tablets without scrunched up and unreadable text and such. Responsive websites are true to their namesake in that they respond to their environment, which in this case is the screen they’re displayed on, be that a desktop computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone. Responsive design provides a fluid layout that automatically and seamlessly adjusts to the size of the screen it’s displayed upon. This lies in contrast to an adaptive (fixed width) design, which can only accommodate device sizes it’s been preprogrammed to play nice with. A responsive design ensures that your small business’s website will look fancy on any device and at any size.

Responsive Design: Why Does It Matter?

Responsive design matters to your small business for a number of reasons:

1. It provides a better user experience and increases conversion rates. It’s only logical: If a site is not responsive, some of your content will either not reach the user or will reach them in such a difficult-to-read fashion that it’ll leave the user (and potential customer!) frustrated. According to Google’s Think Insights on Mobile, a frustrated mobile user has a 61% chance of leaving your site for another. However, a user enjoying a positive experience is 67% more likely to buy a product or service. That’s big-time!
2. It provides ease of management. In the past, companies would develop a separate desktop and mobile site. This resulted in twice as much effort, as both the desktop site and mobile site required different content and SEO (search engine optimization) resources. How unnecessary in an age of responsive design, right?  Responsive design simply lets you consolidate your efforts and more effectively manage your online presence.
3. Mobile usage is on the up. We know this isn't a surprise to you, but there are some interesting stats all the same. Smart Insights provides a number of appropriately intelligent insights, but perhaps the most important statistic right now is that digital media consumption as of 2014 is now primarily done via mobile devices. That’s right. Mobile apps and mobile web are responsible for roughly 60% of all digital media consumption. Also, eMarketer notes that the number of smartphone users worldwide will eclipse the 2 billion mark come 2016.

Responsive Design: The Google Effect

Now that we have all the background out of the way, what does Google’s mobile-friendly update mean for mobile sites, responsive design, and your small business? Quite a lot, actually. The most important takeaway from Google’s update: If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, your site’s ranking will be downgraded whenever someone makes a smartphone-based Google search. And of course, the easiest and most complete way to ensure this mobile-friendliness is through responsive design. Google’s impetus for making this mobile-friendly update to its algorithms is not just to keep web surfers happy, but more importantly to help their bottom line as they face increasingly stiff mobile age competition from the likes of Facebook and other companies looking to break into the mobile ad market Google lords over. With mobile site visits growing each year, it’ll be wise for you and your small business to take the appropriate steps to ensure your bottom line is protected, too. A few additional items to keep in mind regarding Google’s mobile friendly update…

1. Only searches performed on smartphones are affected, not tablet-based searches.
2. Only individual pages are affected, not whole websites.
3. A number of tests are available for webmasters to gauge how mobile-friendly their current website is. Google provides both the Mobile-Friendly Test and the Mobile Usability report within Webmaster Tools.
4. Once mobile-friendly changes are made to your website, Google will re-process your business’s pages and note all the changes automatically.

Wrap-Up

There you have it! Google’s “flipping of the switch” on their mobile-friendly update this past month is their “Hey, get your butt in gear!” message to webmasters and small business owners regarding their websites. It you want to maximize your mobile Google search ranking — and maximize your site’s $$$-making potential — you’ll want to update your site to a responsive design that plays nice with mobile devices. Thanks for hanging with us here on #TechTuesdays! Until next week, here are some pretty examples of responsive sites bound to provide you with some inspiration.