There are 3 things I believe are a great thing to do for several small business websites. Some research on these things will be released by us in the coming months but for now here are 3 wonderful strategies for making every small business website an effective one.

1. The Heading – Stop Them Skimming And Start Them Reading
If possible please try to avoid annoying and boring titles. You will never see a newspaper article with a boring title. Journalists take it pretty seriously; they know how important the headline is. Never think of having a heading that is boring.
Website owners normally seem to think a heading of ‘Welcome to [business name goes here]‘ is sufficient. We tend to really encourage small business owners to have a heading that engages visitors right from the beginning. To make your title more interesting, you can probable state yourself as unique or say something that is interesting.
You will need to be a little ingenious while also thinking about the time period for which this title can last and be advantageous. See our main site for an example http://www.webcircle.com.au/. Our heading (at the time of writing) is “Web Circle is a progressive agency with a relentless drive to discover and implement what works on the web. But what does work?” It informs individuals what we do, it will give a clue to our point of difference and it asks a question to engage the viewer and draw them towards the main content in the website – all in just 2 sentences – stop them skimming and start them reading and that way people may stay in your site long enough to actually learn what you do and find out that you might be an apt choice for whatever they are looking out for.
2. The welcome message -
There are several ways for doing this. You might not have a lengthy welcome message – for instance in our case we have a heading that encompasses the basics of the welcome message and then we have the about us section further down. You may believe it’s appropriate to have a more in depth welcome message. If you do, don’t forget to tell people the basics of what you do, perhaps where you are based but don’t stop there. There are 2 other things you have to include:
1) What makes you different
2) A call to action
Firstly what makes you different – your Unique Selling Proposition (USP), competitive advantage or several other consultant buzzwords. It is vital to say what you do – that is you sell widgets but it’s as significant perhaps a lot more important to talk about how you are different in ways that will engage potential visitors. Most people who look around for widget selling companies will land on your site as a result. The people will know completely well that you sell Widgets. But what is it about your business that will keep them on your website for a long time and believe ‘yeah these guys sound really good’. This can be done in many ways, you will perhaps know from your customers or from the reasons you began your business in the first place exactly what you do really well and why your business achieved success. This is just what you need in here. Simply stating how you are different, ideally, in a way that will attract the people you are trying to target is the key. Some ways could be to discuss your the past, your family, personal stories, anything that adds credibility in the eyes of your clients, any accomplishments, testimonials and anything that adds to your point of difference and builds the dependability of your business.
We (http://www.webcircle.com.au/) make use of the words ‘what actually works on the web’. We talk about “building websites that work” just because we are experts in knowing what actually works. We do not just build websites.
Secondly, a call to action is imperative. What fo you want people to do? You have to be very clear as to where you want the visitor to go to. It might be to call you, to download some free stuff, to buy something. It can be anything But Make It Clear. The last thing you want is an attracted visitor hoping to a different site because they have given up trying to work out how they can take the next step. I’ve done it plenty of times, there is only so much patience a person can have so make it easy.
3. Personalisation
Personalisation is extreamly essential for small business. When you are thinking on the lines of what makes your business different a lot of small businesses will find that it is you that make the business one of a kind. It’s the personal relationship they have with their clients. It is their story, their history, their unique blend of skills. That’s why we advocate personalising as much as possible for most small business sites.
This is very efficient mainly for the types of businesses that have a lot of in-person contact with their customers. People generally respond a lot better to a personal welcome message with images of real people. People love stories – they love success stories and small businesses love working with other small businesses.
We have recently updated our homepage with a few changes, I uploaded my photo on the homepage and changed the ‘about us’ section to ‘The web circle story’. I also wrote half of the story on the homepage, despite that I looked at the stats after a few weeks and found that lot of people had visited the page and people were spending almost 3 times as long as the page – implying they were actually reading it not just clicking on it and skimming it and passing it off as another ‘about us’ page.
And that’s for my boring web design business! Think if my story was in fact interesting! This is an easy way for separating yourself from new challengers because most people don’t make it – in fact a group of small businesses deliberately try to make themselves look bigger than they really are no matter what the purpose might be.
Bringing it all as one
We recently designed a site for Act2 Solutions who sell Actuarial Certificates. Check this post for some info on the site. It includes a catchy headline that states exactly what they do (and how they are unique – they are inexpensive), a welcome email that focuses on how they are different, personalisation by using pictures of Andy as well as a call to action telling clients to get the forms.
Do feel free to post any comments or examples of sites you obtain and your experiences among some of these thoughts.
AWebsiteDesigner.com.au is a company specialising in small business websites. We have been established for 5 years. A Website Designer website which was previously the main website for another web design company. Since then the website has been a leading blog and resource for Australian small business owners. Visit http://awebsitedesigner.com.au to learn more about web design.