Most small business owners understand, at least in theory, the power of the internet for business. However, it is not uncommon for them to feel overwhelmed when trying to make the most out of their website, social media, or email campaigns. In this article, we will explore the best ways for you to take your web projects under control and form a digital strategy that will stand out from the competition.
Invest In a Developer
These days, many small businesses use drag-and-drop web builders or pre-made templates to make their websites. This is, on the whole, a cheap, simple, and effective strategy. However, it can mean that your website ends up looking similar to everyone else’s. If you want your website — and by extension, your brand — to stand out, it is worth investing in a developer.
If you are using WordPress, a PHP developer is your best bet. PHP is the most common coding language and is great for setting up a user-friendly back-end that you can easily make changes to yourself. A CSS developer is more useful if what you want to focus on is your website’s appearance. CSS code can add plenty of cool effects to your website, but it can also boost functionality, for instance by smoothing animations or helping elements stay aligned. Fortunately, you can find reliable freelance web developers on job boards who can perform the work you need on a case-by-case basis.
Finally, having a good mobile website is more important than ever. Google’s search index prioritizes websites optimized for mobile and penalizes those that aren’t. If you want to rank high on online searches, you should hire a mobile developer to ensure your website is optimized and mobile customers can find you.
Make Your Website Accessible
Despite the internet having clear web accessibility guidelines since 2008, less than 10 percent of websites are accessible to everyone. Most people don’t consider accessibility when designing their website, which means they are alienating a whole section of potential customers.
For the most part, simply designing your website to be easy to navigate and not too visually complex goes a long way. However, there are ways to go the extra mile. For example, you should make sure that any audiovisual content on your website (and social media) has subtitles. This is a small change that makes your content accessible to people with hearing impairments.
Be Strategic With Social Media
You’d think that every single business knows to be on social media these days, but an astonishing 40 percent of small businesses still don’t have any social media presence. This means that, by simply being on social media, you are ahead of many of your competitors.
However, that really isn’t enough. Your social media efforts should be part of a consistent, thought-out strategy. Investing in a few tools can help you with this. Buffer is a great one for scheduling and analyzing posts, but you can also use tech like Canva, Animoto, and Unsplash to share top-notch graphics, videos, and photos. Or better yet, you could hire Myraj Media to handle all your social media marketing needs so that you can maximize your efforts and reach your target audience.
Refine Your Email Campaigns
Email marketing is still going strong and, like with social media, it’s important to have a strategy. Unfortunately, for many small businesses, this amounts to “shoot out emails and hope people open them.” What you need to do is get familiar with your email metrics, specifically the most important ones like open rate, click-to-open rate, mobile open rate, and mobile click rate. Gather as much information as you can, and use it to refine your targeting and messages. It takes a bit of trial and error, but it is a lot more effective than just hoping for the best.
Every modern company, no matter how small, should have a digital strategy. Taking the time to make plans, select tools, and hire the right people to support you can revolutionize your business. It is not as complicated as it sounds, and there is plenty of help available on the internet, so get started — get ahead.
