For small business owners, economic uncertainty can make it difficult to prioritize website updates. But by making strategic improvements, you can position your business for growth even in a recession, and the St. Charles Area Chamber of Commerce can help. Read on to learn some tips for maintaining and improving your website during tough times.
Help Visitors Make Decisions
A clear call-to-action (CTA) is essential for any website, but especially so in uncertain economic times. Your CTA should be visible and easily actionable on every page of your site in order to boost sales. It should also speak directly to customers and include details about what they need to do next. For example, if you’re running an online store, your CTA could be something like “Buy Now” or “Shop Now” with a link that takes customers directly to the checkout page.
Show Customer Satisfaction
Testimonials are one of the most powerful forms of social proof you can add to your website — and it doesn’t cost anything extra if you already have satisfied customers! Add customer testimonials throughout your site to show potential customers that others are happy with their experience when buying from you. Be sure that each testimonial includes specific details about how the product or service improved their life or solved a problem they had.
Optimize Your Site
Search engine optimization (SEO) may seem like an expensive undertaking without much return right now, but taking the time to optimize your website will pay off in the long run — especially as more people turn to search engines for local businesses as part of their purchasing decisions. Investing time into researching keywords related to your industry and including them strategically throughout your website is essential for driving organic traffic. Additionally, optimizing images with alt text ensures that they appear accurately on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Give Them New Content
Stagnant content is rarely beneficial--no matter what type of website you have or what kind of industry you’re in--so making sure that your content is up-to-date is crucial during uncertain times. If possible, aim for creating and updating blog posts at least once per month with fresh information related to current events and trends happening in the space. Not only does this help keep readers coming back, but it can also boost SEO rankings over time too.
Keep It Moving
Slow-loading pages are one of the biggest deterrents when potential customers are browsing websites online, particularly on mobile devices where users expect pages to load quickly. When designing and developing new features on your site or upgrading existing ones, always keep page speed in mind. Simple changes such as compressing images or using caching plugins can make a big difference here.
Keep Up With Repairs
While coding skills aren’t necessary for many small businesses looking to make basic website updates, learning basic web development techniques is invaluable when it comes time to troubleshoot broken pages or make larger-scale changes. Even spending just an hour per week researching topics like HTML/CSS/Javascript basics can go a long way toward helping your site stay functional and secure during uncertain times. Look online for resources that can help you learn more.
Utilize PDF Tools For Security
PDFs offer an added level of security over other types of documents since they include built-in encryption features which protect against data mining attempts from hackers. Adding PDFs onto key areas on your site--such as terms & conditions--can not only help protect both yourself and customers from cyber threats but also give users peace of mind knowing their information will remain secure. You can try this page when you need visitors to fill out or sign a form while keeping their info safe.
Making updates to your website may seem like an overwhelming task if you don't have a good plan. Sit down and write out the improvements you'd like to make, and do some research on things like PDF tools or coding classes. With the right moves, you can ensure that your business site is prepared for anything.
The St. Charles Area Chamber of Commerce is dedicated to helping small business owners meet their goals. Take a look at the resources we offer today.
