What information do I need on my website?
In our previous blog post, we looked at the purpose of a website for a small business. For most small businesses the only purpose for their website is to provide clarification. Location, phone number, services and other basic pieces of information are what the majority of website visitors require.
It’s all about clarification
Assuming your business website is not focussed on eCommerce or is a blog, the most people will use your website for is to check key information.
How do people find out about new businesses? The most common way nowadays is with social media. Either through seeing posts the business has put up, through friends sharing posts about businesses or through social media advertising. Social media provides the bridge between a business and potential customers.
Once a potential new customer sees a post on social media about a business, all they will need next from their website is that clarification.
Imagine a friend shares a post on Facebook about a local cafe. It looks lovely, perhaps you will pop there at the weekend. When is it open? Is it child-friendly? Do they provide gluten-free cakes?
You know the answer to those questions will be easiest found on the cafe’s website. Therefore, such information must be readily available on the cafe’s website.
What sort of information, then do you need to include on your small business website?
Location, location, location
For the vast majority of small businesses, it’s all about location. Plumbers, restaurants, bookshops, cafes and more all service customers who are near or would need to know the business’ location.
On the website we recently built for a driving instructor the main heading and title for the page says ‘Driving lessons in Taunton’. Anyone who visits the website from Exeter, Cornwall or Dubai would see that large page title first. Then they’ll easily know that this driving instructor probably doesn’t operate it their area. Plus, having those keywords of ‘driving lessons’ and ‘Taunton’ in the H1 title on the home page will be great for SEO and being found within Google.
Any small business that deals with customers locally or has a fixed address for customers to visit need to promote their location. The on-page text content, such as titles and text blocks, need to specify the location. Also, other features need to be included, such as on the contact pages there needs to be a map and an address. A phone number with a local area code also helps.
Contact information
Around 44% of visitors will leave a website if there’s no way of contacting you. It really is that simple — share the contact details for your business or risk missing out on customers.
Whatever your business, people will want to ask questions. I’ve had a great variety of interesting and sometimes absurd questions posed to Tiny Blue Rocket. It’s surprising how many simple requests have led to the person posing the question becoming a client of our business.
While a lot of website visitors will look for the answers to their questions online, still a great many people prefer to just call, email or pop in to ask a question.
Therefore, it’s important to have your business’ phone number and email address(es) easily available on your website.
Fielding questions and helping customers get answers is important, but it takes an awful lot of time. There is a simple solution to that problem — have a chatbot for business.
A chatbot can allow people to ask basic questions 24/7, 365 days a year and get an immediate response. In the modern world, people want an answer quickly. 88% of online visitors will not want to engage with your business if they have a bad experience online. That could include emailing or reaching out to your business and having to wait for a response. A chatbot can solve that problem!
What do you do?
Often the most important question a visitor might have is “ok, can you do…?” Or maybe “do you sell…?” People will want to check exactly what your business does or provides.
Imagine a plumber. Not all plumbers can fix solar panels, but some can and are trained to assist. If you were a plumber who had taken the time to be trained to fix solar panels and eco heating systems, you’d want to mention that only.
Unfortunately, some business either forget to regularly update their website or make the mistake of assuming people will know.
A website visitor will scan a business’ website, not read it carefully. Therefore, it’s important that a business puts their skills, services and key information clearly on their website. Much like I mentioned in the previous section, people will want answers to their questions quickly and easily. Making sure they can reach out to you and contact you is important. Providing the answers to the sorts of questions people ask on your website, clearly, is incredibly important.
It’s important to remember, the credibility of a business is based 75% on their website. If people come to a plumber’s website and do not see any mention of solar panel repairs, they will assume that plumber doesn’t have those skills.
Also, as an extra example, imagine a potential customer who’s vegan looking at a cafe’s menu online. If they don’t see any mention of non-dairy milk, they will assume the cafe doesn’t provide vegan alternatives. What if the cafe does but hasn’t made that explicitly clear online? Veganism and vegan food options are very much in demand. Between 2016 and 2018 there was a 388% growth in vegan food. Missing out the vegan options could cost that fictional cafe an awful lot of fictional business and customers!
Businesses need to get their key information front and centre on their website.
In summary
With the unstoppable growth of social media, the role of the small business website has changed. The main purpose as we move into the 2020s is for the website to simply provide clarification. Where are you located? How do I get in touch? What do you do? Those are the questions people want answering from a business’ website.
If you think it might be time to improve your website and get it ready for 2020, get in touch today.
Find out more: https://www.tinybluerocket.co.uk
