Website Basics for Small Business. Understanding the basics of websites for small business and online marketing. In this episode of The How of Business podcast, Henry Lopez and David Ristuccia discuss the basics of websites for small business. As a small business owner, where should you start and what should you consider when building your website or hiring someone to build it for you? It’s important to first understand the basics of websites before spending considerable effort and money to build one that may end up being ineffective and having to start over.

Website Basics for Small Business – topics discussed in this episode include:

• This episode is for you is you don’t currently have a website for your business, or perhaps you have a basic website but you are not sure if it’s any good.
• Henry & David introduce the concept of websites…what they are and how they are built. They don’t get too technical, but they explain the basic technical components of websites. This episode, however, is for non-technical business owners who need to understand the essentials of websites so that they can move forward with developing one for their small business.
• There are two primary types of websites: informational (provides information about your business (phone number, address, menu, pricing, etc.), and a basic call to action like call, e-mail or sign-up) and commerce (selling a product or service online).
• There are two options for you when developing your website: you can build it yourself with tools like Wix, Squarespace, (or WordPress for more advanced and technically capable users) or you can hire a company  build it for you (as entrepreneurs we should be focused on activities that move our business forward, and building a website does not typically fall into that category).
• The goal of any website is to convert – the conversion may include encouraging a visitor to buy, call, subscribe or visit.
• The user experience must be be positive for your website to be effective and convert.
• When hiring a company or individual to build your website, it’s important to ask lots of questions and be sure to agree in writing as to the scope and cost of development.
• It’s critical that you maintain your website, with valid links and updated and relevant content (including written content, images and videos).
• Analytics – the data about how your website is performing, including how many visitors and how they are behaving on your site.
• Your business website must be mobile-friendly, loads quickly (should not take more than 4 or 5 seconds to load the entire page) (test your page speed with the free Google Page Speed Test), and make sure that you name, phone number and address are consistent and accurate across the entire website.
• Henry & David also offers some do’s and don’ts for your small business website.
• The most important measurement of the effectiveness of a website is how well it’s converting (enticing visitors to buy, call, subscribe or visit) – how much business is it generating for your small business.

Resources:

Related Episodes:

Small Business Website Episodes

You can find all episodes of The How of Business podcast, hosted by Henry Lopez, on the Archives page.