A website is on the must-have table for most small businesses in this modern world. A website is now the main shop front and first touchpoint for generating new customer inquiries and sales leads. At this stage, you probably have the same question as other small business owners:
How to create a high-quality, well-functioning website to bring in more sales and revenues in the long term? What is the small business website checklist?
Small Business Website Checklist
Let’s have a look at the Small Business Website Checklist:
Your website is an asset that can attract clients and help your business grow. Except for all the proper components and parts, it’s impossible. Remember, basic websites can not drive traffic & that can be damaging to your business. It should be solved as soon as possible.
1. Excellent Home Page
Your home page is where consumers learn about who you are, what you do, how you can help them solve their problems & you convert those leads to a sale.
An excellent home page will ensure they are going to scroll down/navigate, or they are going to click that “X” and go find another site to browse in seconds.
To ensure your home page is as persuasive as possible, try these points:
- Header
Companies need to be highly creative with their header portion of the home page.
- Logo
When users visit your website, they will expect to see your logo first. By placing your logo at the left can establish immediate trust and gain instant brand recognition before the journey continues. You should also make sure it links to your homepage & if your logo does not link back, then it may well appear broken.
- Utilize great graphical elements
Graphic elements show connections, hierarchy, and importance visually. A beautiful design is an outcome of thoughtfully plotted design elements chosen to generate a visual representation of the concept and the imagination. Make sure you use this trump card to attract the consumers.
- Search Box
A search box can be the top right of the site or the top of a right-hand sidebar.
- Simple Navigation
Users should not have to ‘look’ for the navigation section of your site. Using a simple menu below the header will allow people to hop from one area of your site to another. Do not include any more links than is necessary.
- Opt-In Offer
Creating an opt-in offer will make sure that users have a way of giving you their email address. It is a little impression to catch attention. You can put it at the top of your sidebar, which will lead consumers onto the next item on your checklist.
- About Section
You can attach a photo of your team or your CEO on the home page. By this, consumers build an individual connection with you, and it makes them more likely to use your assistance in the future.
- Footer
After a creative website’s footer, there’s some information which it’s much conventional to include.
- A copyright symbol, current year & company name
It’s been a regular practice to include a copyright symbol, current year & company name for ages.
For example Copyright © 2024; AtZTechnology.com
Ensure the year updates automatically, or you’ll have to remind and possibly pay your designer to renew it each year.
- Privacy policy and terms & conditions
You need to include links to your privacy policy, terms & conditions & legal disclaimers. It instills trust in a user by making the information easy to find. It’s so common to get these links in the footer & it might ring alarm bells if they’re not present.
An e-commerce site should check terms covering the distance selling regulations applied to the site.
Once your home page is ready for the best performance, then move on to the other areas of your site and keep ongoing. The more thorough you are, the better your site will perform.
2. Create a Plugin for Your Social Media Community
As social media is becoming a necessary platform for interacting and marketing, it is vital to have a plugin. When you have various social media communities, you can execute a particular plugin for each media so that your feed or a part also appears on your website. By which, people visiting your website will get to know how they can communicate with your community. Besides, if your content is attractive enough, you open the possibility to share it throughout their community. Therefore, by performing social media share, you can grow your community and your reach.
3. Content
Your content should focus on the audiences, not on yourself. This is not a notebook. Give them valuable information so that from your website they find out words from you.
Also, you want to be informative, but you don’t want to take up all their time. Remember, most web users are in a rush. So, keep it sweet and small.
Body
- Social proof in the form of (real) testimonials.
- Prominent Calls To Action (CTA’s).
- Make sure the text is clear & suits your needs.
- Link to other relevant sections of the site to make a user’s journey comfortable.
- Promote your most popular, recent & related content.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Your images should have alt tags on them and included keywords in the filename.
- Use clear to read keyword-rich URLs.
- Ensure your Title Tag is 70 characters or less, unique to each page & contains your keywords when reading naturally.
- Only one H1 tag on any page and include your primary keyword.
- Keywords and variations of it throughout the rest of the body text.
- up to date Google sitemap on a regular basis.
- Write meta descriptions for primary pages while it won’t affect your rankings, it may help with click-throughs from the search engine results.
- You can add Open Graph Protocol and Twitter Card information.
Ecommerce
- Customer Reviews (Real)
- Clear return/refund policy
- Prove it’s safe by showing security certificates
- Explain the types of cards or payment services you accept
- Make sure you’ve got a description for each good & it’s unique
- Bundle extra products for extra sales
- Trust signals like live help, delivery guarantees.
4. Contact Information
When customers do business with small companies, they’re looking for two things: personalized service and convenient experience. By presenting your contact information, phone number, address, and even a map on your site can work as a virtual guarantee for your customers.
If customers have a query or need guidance, they should easily spot your phone number or email and communicate with you to get help. To see a product in person, they can click on that map in your footer, find directions, and bounce in the car in minutes.
5. Fast Loading Times
Page loading times are more vital than you may have imagined. Firstly, in Search Engine Algorithms, if your site loads slowly, it will be ranked lower than other sites who have better loading times.
Secondly, The longer your site takes to load, the less likely customers are going to stick around. You don’t want to take that risk..
6. Proper Domain Registration Information
Google factors in domain registration information into its algorithm, considering it an indicator of business credibility.
To ensure your domain registration isn’t harming your site, check these:
- we would recommend you not to keep contact information private. However, your domain contact information should match the contact information on your website.
- If your domain expiration date is less than three years away, re-up it. If you let the registration slide too long, search engines may think you’re not obligated to the domain or the site. These can affect your rankings and performance in the future.
- Keep the same domain as long as possible. Search engines consider longer standing sites more durable and reliable. So they rank them higher in searches. It takes a long time to create a standing within search engines, and you can not afford to lose that.
7. Mobile-Friendly Design
Research shows that by 2020, 45% of all e-commerce will happen on mobile devices. So making your site easy to use on mobile is the key to provide your potential consumers a good user experience.
If your site looks and performs properly on mobile devices, it can be plenty to give you a leg up on the competition. If it doesn’t pull up well like the font is excessively small, the images don’t display, or it’s tough to navigate – then the opposite will happen. Your search rankings will start to fall. Mobile design is playing an active role in boosting the webpage more quickly.
8. Conversion Focused Pages
These are pages created to convert visitors.
If visitors click on these links, they should see that the pages load up in a somewhat different format to the rest of the site. These pages are much more ‘plain’ looking and have a simple header with no links, and the sidebar is missing, along with the footer.
These pages are there to convert people to your mailing list – nothing else. And they do work!
9. Video
A video is a perfect tool because it engages the laziest buyers. The easiest way to show your real personality is by using a video in a prominent location (‘About’ page, or ‘Homepage’). The current customer desires to see the product in motion. Video marketing can seize a mass audience, and it works great.
10. Google Analytics Installation
Google’s free web analytics service enables you to track various metrics, observe the effectiveness of your online marketing tactics, onsite content, user experience, and device functionality. These precious insights can assist you while developing the success strategy of your business.
11. Google Webmasters Integration
Google Webmasters allows you to monitor the overall strength of your website, as viewed by Google.
You’ll see your loading times & if there are any errors or 404s, and how your site is functioning on mobile devices. You can also get ranking data for your keywords, submit sitemaps and robots.txt files, and many more.
12. A Blog
A blog should be an area of each small business marketing strategy. Every business has stories that will engage, inform, shock, delight, and influence their audience and also deliver on assessable business goals. If you have buyers, you have a fascinated audience expecting your blog posts. It’s the easiest and quickest way to build reputation, authority, and personality as an entrepreneur and business owner.
They are a win-win for everybody.
13. Proof
Customers want to know that other people have used your services and come out on top because of it. They want proof.
Therefore, every small business website needs a portfolio, case study, or recommendations section that gives possible leads insight into the company accomplishment. These pages also allow you a chance to improve your SEO aims by linking out previous client’s websites and social pages. The more high-quality links, the more enlightening it looks and the higher search engines will rank it.
14. Off-site Tips
If you want to have the most successful online appearance imaginable, you have to develop your visibility elsewhere, too. Here are a few techniques to do that:
- Create a Google My Business page and connect it to your website as Google prefers sites that use Google My Business.
- Create a Yelp listing. As Yelp is a very used, long-standing and trusted domain, Google will often display a business’ Yelp listing long before their actual one if they have good ratings. A good rating makes shoppers more likely to buy from that company in the future.
- Search engines value social content very much, and it can influence your visibility and SEO performance.
Things to must avoid on your site
- Don’t use flash elements.
- Avoid background music.
- Never upload videos straight on the website server. Instead, use the strength of Youtube or Vimeo.
Website Checklist Before Launch
Creating a website has never been hard right now. However, only launching a website and it will work perfectly to tell is not good.
Before launching a website you have to be more careful about and focus on some of the points and need to have a Website launch plan. Here is the Website features checklist here is the list:
Make Sure Your SSL Certificate Works (HTTPS)
To increase the trust of the audience they have to have an SSL certificate for sure. People don’t like that website that does not have an SSL certificate, customers thought who would take $12 to $25 certificate how he can give good service for the customers.
So, make sure you have bought SSL and integrated it in a nice way that can show like a lock on the left corner of the domain name. Without SSL any search will not give website ranking as Google and search engines thought it has some sorority issue.
Make Have a Contract Page
It is a one-stop solution border. If you are running a blog, portfolio, e-commerce or any other which is very common to have a contact us page. Visitors can get in touch through the contact page so never forget it ( it is mandatory).
Set Up a Backup Solution
Backup of a lifesaver. YES! It is hard to face problems like crushing your website or happen any bad things with you. If you don’t take backup then All the hard work will be empty in just one minute. There are various types of backup. one way is to copy and download the file and then save it to some important palace.
Google Mobile Friendliness
One of the key points is mobile-friendliness and it is highly significant. In Google update, they said that they are planning to index content in moline 1st. So, it is clear your website needs to be mobile-friendliness if you want to get a rank in Google ( which 74% of internet users).
As a Matter of fact, mobile-friendly can increase your sales and it is in high demand. Never forget to do that. If you want you can read out HERE. you can check if your website is mobile-friendly or not.
Choose a CMS
Don’t make mistakes while you are choosing a CMS platform. You have to know all the aspects around that CMS. What types of benefits it has and what you haven’t compared with other CMS.
In choosing the CMS something need to be have back of the mind:
It is help in SEO
Will it be user friendly
How quick you can learn about the CMS
Sometimes business owners like to create a custom CMS for their small business in the eCommerce area. For that, you have ensured all the basic work have done perfectly.
Testing Your website
For the SEO running and overall perfect your website, you have to test your website multiple times if needed. Some of the time images take problems and make your website slow it down. It is better to have all the images under 100 kb.
To take any product call to action you have to have a contact us page for you. Check website UX and UI to make it more user friendly.
If you have any autoresponder then make it conform that it works smithly.
In case you have a payment get way system for your buyer to buy the products. You need to double-check if your website payment process is ok and secure as well.
Prepare for 404s
Mostly with the new website it doesn’t happen 404s errors. Though, it is good to be prepared if a visitor mistypes a URL. to be prepared 404s will improve the user experience and help the users to get the right point and don’t lose the customers.
Conclusion
A short comprehensive guide like this can’t include every possible way, but it covered the universal rules which you should follow. This small business website checklist aims to support small business owners. It describes the must-have ingredients for your website so you can secure the best possibility of succeeding online.
The list will enable you to check the most significant elements on your website & it should take no more than 30 minutes. Now, go there to make sure MONEY WELL USED.