Picture this: A prospective customer interested in your services looks up your business online. After landing on your small business’s website, the user is met with a generic digital presence that feels detached from your brand and unwelcoming. As a result, they quickly click away and look for another business to explore.

This is an all too common mistake in the realm of web design and development. For small businesses, it’s essential to create a website that grabs the users’ attention and encourages them to dive deeper into your services. By taking the time to develop an engaging website, your small business can successfully bring new customers to your door and show existing customers why your business is worth returning to again and again.

Revamping your existing website doesn’t have to add extra stress for your staff. By familiarizing yourself with best practices, your business can streamline the web design process and create a comprehensive site in no time. Use these essential tips to get started:

1. Create a robust About Us page.
2. Generate blog content.
3. Develop a testimonials page.

Your website should tell your small business’s story. With a well-designed online presence that represents your company’s identity, you can boost brand visibility, connect with prospective and existing customers, and drive conversions. Let’s begin.

1. Create a robust About Us page.

Your small business serves a specialized purpose in your community. Use your website as an opportunity to spotlight your business, its distinct products or services, and why customers should engage with your company rather than a competitor.

This can be done by creating an engaging About Us page. On this page, bring attention to the following elements:

• Your mission and values. Why was your company founded, and what does it stand for? As a small business, you can touch on the important role you play in the community. For example, if you’re a dance studio owner, you might explain that your mission is to provide comprehensive dance education to underserved youth and how you value integrating the arts into daily life. Develop a mission statement that will resonate with customers.
• The products or services you offer. What exactly does your business provide customers? Explain how your purpose and values contribute to better-quality services or products. Focus on the different solutions your product or service offers so customers see the value in engaging with your business.
• Why customers should care. Emphasize the value your product or service gives to customers that they can’t get from any other business. For instance, if you’re selling baked goods, you could explain how your vegan offerings not only taste good and are nutritious but are also beneficial for the environment.

Add high-quality photos, videos, or graphic designs to your About Us page to bring your business to life. You might feature the owners and staff that run your business, visuals of your products, or even happy customers taking part in your services. This will help prospective customers connect with your business and feel more inclined to buy from you.

2. Generate blog content.

A well-run blog can be a powerful tool in driving customer engagement. By generating content related to the unique service your business provides, your upcoming events, or updates into how your business plans to grow, your company can encourage customers to continue returning to your website and leverage your blog to effectively market your brand.

Use these tips to kickstart your blog and increase time spent on your website:

• Post on a consistent basis. Whether you want to publish blog content once a week or twice a month, it’s important that you maintain a regular posting schedule. This ensures that you’re producing fresh content that will continue to appeal to customers. Check in with your business’s marketing team to ensure that your posting timeline is feasible and everyone is clear on their role in the content creation process.
• Maintain your brand voice. According to Kwala, your messaging and tone are a central part of your business’s identity and should be carried throughout your blog posts. Your business might consider developing a more formal tone to establish its authority in your respective field, or you might use an informal tone to create a more casual, welcoming feel. Determine what makes the most sense for your brand’s personality.
• Add opportunities for audience interaction. Interactive elements allow your audience to fully engage with your business in unique ways. For example, your business can add polls and quizzes to your blog content and incorporate calls-to-action in your posts that direct users to sign up for your email newsletter or purchase a product. Plus, consider inviting audience members to send in photos and videos of themselves participating in your services or using your product. Current customers will then check back to your blog to see if their visuals were published.

Share your blog content widely across social media to boost brand visibility and drive more traffic to your site. For example, if you’re a ballet studio owner, you might share a blog post on Facebook that highlights your latest youth ballet recital. According to DanceStudioPro’s marketing guide, sharing content across different social media channels can help your small business increase its reach and bring more traffic back to its website. Use social media sharing tools to automatically repost your blog content to your social channels.

3. Develop a testimonials page.

When prospective customers navigate to your website, they’ll be curious to find out more about your business and whether it’s a credible company. Develop a testimonials page that features quotes from your loyal customers, highlighting how they benefited from your business’s products or services. For instance, they might mention how your services helped them increase efficiency, improve their daily lives, or fulfill a critical need.

Ensure that you feature a variety of quotes that address different subject matter. For example, if you run a hip-hop dance studio, you might not want to include similar quotes that all rave about how great your beginner classes are. Instead, you could feature an array of quotes that discuss the quality of your staff, the affordable costs, the community, and other positive aspects relevant to your business. This way, prospective customers hear about different facets of your business and what makes you stand out.

To collect testimonials, you could email surveys to customers subscribed to your mailing list. Or, include a QR code on the bottom of your receipt that will take customers to a survey asking about their experience with your business. Consider offering incentives to customers who provide testimonials, such as providing discounted rates or putting their name in a drawing for one of your products.

As you implement these best practices into your web design, actively monitor metrics like page views, average session duration, and bounce rate. This will help you better understand which type of content resonates most with your target audience so you can make adjustments as needed. Continue to optimize your website over time to stay up to date with trends and engage customers in digital-savvy ways. Good luck!

About the Author

Olivia Mode-Cater

Olivia Mode-Cater is an industry leader in dance education and dance entrepreneurship, having presented on these topics on a national and international level. Olivia’s work draws on her experiences as a veteran dance educator in all teaching settings: higher education, PK-12 schools, and studios. Olivia proudly joined the DanceStudio-Pro team in 2021 as the Sr. Marketing Manager.