Wednesday, 11 August 2010

Keys to Building a Successful Small Business Website

A small business website serves the primary function of providing information about the business, the products, and the services. The purpose of creating such a site is to attract visitors, create inquiries or leads, and generate more business. A small business website should be able to market the products and services over the Internet and create a sense of need in readers so as to achieve greater conversion rates. So what are the keys to building a good small business website?

* Quality content is of utmost importance. No matter how attractive a site looks, it is ultimately the content that will hook people and keep them coming back. After all, when you recommend a site to a friend, do you do it merely because the site looks good or because the information available is helpful, useful, and interesting? To ensure the online success of a site, it is extremely important to have unique and fresh content. You can try blogs, or can update content at least once every week. Remember that search engines are not too fond of stale sites either and if you have not added new content in a long time, it is bound to reflect in the form of poor search engine rankings.

* Reciprocal link exchange is a great way of directing visitors to your site. It basically means that you share links with other sites to ensure mutual traffic. Reciprocal linking constitutes an important part of search engine optimization. As a website owner, you can submit your site to various reciprocal link exchange directories so that even if a visitor is on a different site, he/ she can get directed to your site. This considerably increases chances of greater sales. In addition, reciprocal link exchanging influences better ranking in the search engines.

* It is important to pay attention to the site's structure. If it has flashy graphics, too many advertisements and pop-ups, or loud music, chances are that visitors will get distracted and leave the site. You should also ensure that your site is easily navigable. This plays a crucial role in the success of your online business because unless visitors are able to locate what they are searching for, the entire point of having an online presence is defeated.

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