By Ivan Serrano

Whether your small business provides a product or a service to a large or niche audience, you need to have an up-to-date website. In an increasingly connected world where we spend huge portions of our lives “plugged in” to phones, computers, or other techs, it’s vital to jump into the influence this tech has over our lives. One study estimated that the average American adult spends more than 4 hours per day on the phone. With such a large portion of the day being used in tech, making sure your company is represented in these mediums is key. You want your firm to be as accessible to customers as possible and you can do this by engaging via your website.

Although creating a website is a great step, ensuring that its aesthetic and content satisfies the needs of the readers is also important. This means it should visually look appealing, convey relevant content, include accurate and adequate information about your small business, and do this in a quick and easily readable manner.

Provide information

The first thing to do is to make sure that your website includes enough information about who you are and what you do that a new and uninformed customer could easily understand the basics. Even more than that, you want to provide the resources for readers to have access to finding more information for an understanding of greater depth. You should strive to achieve a good balance between providing the necessary basics that describe you well and encouraging access for more research.

Attract relevant users

Second, you need to make sure that all information you provide is relevant to who you are and who your customer is. This includes indirect connections as well. For instance, if your firm sells car insurance, it’s important to not only provide information about your service and how to get a quote, but also blog posts on relevant issues, like how teen driving statistics affect teen insurance rates. This helps to attract potential customers who otherwise would not have done business with your company.

Use smart SEO

By providing information that is relevant and comprehensive in such a way, your site’s search engine optimization (SEO) will be positively impacted. Google bots, for instance, will be able to recognize your authority on the subject and your page’s ranking, and a customer’s Google search will be benefited accordingly.

For example, if you sell cars but feature blog posts on children’s books recommendations, this irrelevant information is going to hurt you. You should only have information that is relevant to your firm and what it does, which would be considered a smart SEO move. By having a smart strategy like this you will then have more exposure to customers, which directly translates to clicks and conversions. For instance, if you have comprehensive information on cars on your site, you will be located by individuals searching for information about cars, car insurance, or the like. This is great if that is the audience you are trying to target. They will be able to find you through a search when you provide relevant information that uses keywords like “cars” that they search for.

Interact in different ways

We live in an increasingly connected world where most Americans spend a huge portion of their days plugged in. When the average American adult spends nearly half their days interacting with some form of media, you need to get in on this market! It’s just as important as featuring accurate and relevant information on your website. For instance, make sure to have different social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to share content and interact with your audience. Furthermore, by integrating your social media into your website, such as featuring Tweets on your home page, you can maximize engagement with your audience and share even more information with interested users.

Showcase unique photography

It can also be beneficial to feature unique photography and graphics throughout your site. Though stock photos are free, easy to access and span everything you could ever need for site photography, there are tons of websites out there that will be using those same photos. Though commissioning a photographer will provide a high upfront cost, it can yield great returns in customer engagement and even conversions. Stock photos are extremely impersonal and general; by featuring photos unique to you, customers will get a chance to visually learn about your firm.

In conclusion, there is a myriad of different ways to interact with consumers via the Internet. However, you want all of your interactions with users to be beneficial by directly contributing to promoting your company, image, and reputation wholly and accurately. By having a website that features relevant information, uses smart SEO strategies, features social media, and showcases unique photography, you will be well on your way to translating clicks on your site to tangible conversions.

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Ivan Serrano is a writer specializing in technology. He is from San Jose, California, and attended high school at Valley Christian High School (go Warriors!). He moved to San Francisco State University (go Gators!), and graduated with a double major in English (concentration in Creative Writing) and Journalism (with a concentration in photojournalism).