Market-research companies estimate that 81% of consumers turn to digital channels when researching products and services before making a purchase. This is why a small business website remains an essential tool to grow your business.
If you don’t already have a website for your small business or if you want to improve yours, this guide can help you find the right platform for your business’s needs and goals.
Why are small business websites still important?
While the percentage of consumers making purchases through social-media sites has grown, it’s still relatively small compared to the number of purchases made through websites or even brick-and-mortar locations.
Consumers turn to websites because there’s more detailed information about products and services, which can be helpful when making purchase decisions. Especially in a time when online scams are rampant, small business websites provide a sense of legitimacy and build trust.
For you, a small business website is still one of the most time- and cost-effective ways to build your brand, connect with your current clientele, and attract new customers:
- You can create a landing page for your business with easy access to contact information, hours, location – whatever is most relevant to and helpful for your customers.
- Your website is the foundation for your digital marketing, which is a low-cost and easy-to-update strategy to showcase new products and services, sales, and anything else you want to highlight.
- Your website is a trusted tool for lead generation and ecommerce – consumers are still more likely to make first-time purchases from a website than a social media site.
- You can develop, promote, and maintain your brand image, voice, and messaging through your website.
It’s estimated that 27% of small businesses don’t have a website today. If your business does, you can create a considerable competitive advantage for less time and financial investment than you may realize.
How to select the right platform for your small business website
Whether you’re building your first website or exploring options for a new one, the number of website platforms out there can give you “analysis paralysis” – when you can’t make a decision simply because there are too many similar options.
You don’t have to be a website-design expert to get started, but you do need to find a match that best fits your needs and available resources. It’s also good to use a platform that you can easily update so that when you introduce new products or services, you can add them yourself, rather than booking time with a designer.
Key considerations when choosing a platform for your website:
While there may be some specific factors that you’ll need to explore for your business, in most cases, these are your key considerations:
- End-user experience: The best – and often the most common and affordable – website platforms today are designed to provide an easy and engaging user experience. Still, once you choose a platform and design your website, you’ll want to ensure that the entire experience is smooth and quick. If it’s not, it will hurt your engagement and conversion. Some platform packages even have tools included to check user-friendliness such as running search engine optimization (SEO) checks and website audits.
- Compatibility with your existing software: Consider whether a website platform is compatible with programs that you currently use, like your bookkeeping software or blogging platform. The fewer changes that you need to make up front, the more likely you are to get a great website up, giving you the chance to focus on making it more effective and efficient.
- Design capabilities: Today’s website platforms offer a ton of design capabilities, including existing themes that you can use as-is or customize. When exploring your options, consider what you truly need and how you’ll use your website. Do you have just a handful of products or services to highlight that likely won’t change often, or do you feature new products daily, weekly, or monthly? Will website plug-ins give you the functionality you need, or do you think you’ll need a professional’s help? These considerations can lead you in the right direction.
- Ecommerce: If you’re only using your website for basic information, then a platform that offers simple templates that can be customized will be enough. If you plan to sell online, there are additional considerations. For example, an online ordering system for a restaurant, will require different functionality than a drop-shipping ecommerce site. Be sure to prioritize your end users, as this can be a make-or-break point for your customers. Website builders can help you develop the right functionality and the theme you choose should reflect and support that.
- Budget: Consider both your costs at the beginning and your longer-term budget. Your goal is to find the right mix of current and future capabilities, as well as costs, without overpaying for things you won’t use. If you decide to budget for a designer, keep in mind how that will impact your short and long term goals. While having someone else design your site may save you time now, if they tweak templates or other built-ins, you’ll either need to learn how to update it or continue to pay them for their work.
- Scalability: Some of the low-cost and free website platforms are great if you’re just launching your business or have a limited number of products. However, if you plan to eventually have a large range of products and/or a high sales volume, do some research to see if your website platform can scale with you.
Top recommendations for small business website platforms
Here are the top recommendations for your small business website! As you consider your options, be sure to read reviews to see what other small business owners think.
In addition, see if you can find information about speed. Some platforms give priority to their largest customers, so your website is slower because your business is smaller. It may not be worth the small difference you’ll pay for customer satisfaction over the years.
- Wix: Wix is one of the most popular website platforms for small businesses. It has a lot to offer for low prices, with many upgrades available. With Wix, you can easily integrate ecommerce, restaurant capabilities, blogs, scheduling, and more.
- Squarespace: Squarespace is a website platform favored by small businesses in the art and design space. It offers templates that can feature a portfolio of products and projects.
- GoDaddy: GoDaddy’s website builder is an affordable way to launch a website and you can easily connect with and speak to a live customer service representative (not all platforms offer that). It can be a great way to get your business online with lots of plug-ins that increase its compatibility with other platforms. GoDaddy also often offers a free month of website capabilities when you get your domain name through them, so it’s a great opportunity to try the website builder before committing to a package.
- Shopify: Shopify has been a leader in helping businesses launch and grow through ecommerce because of its intuitive and well-designed templates, and huge range of available plug-ins. If you’ll need significant expansions to your website down the line, Shopify will save you the work of shifting your ecommerce capabilities as you grow. Shopify usually offers a free trial period (10-14 days), so you can try it out before you commit.
- WordPress.com: Everyone knows WordPress from its start as a blogging platform, but it added ecommerce capabilities several years ago. If you have an existing blog or you’re interested in starting one and want to easily offer products and services, WordPress is worth exploring.
- Weebly: Weebly offers a free website builder, although you’ll likely have to pay upcharges for some of the plug-ins. However, if your business only requires a small business website for basic information, it may be a cost-effective and easy option.
- HubSpot: HubSpot’s website builder includes a customer-relationship management (CRM) system, so if that could be useful for your business, it’s worth exploring. Similar to the other website platforms, it has a lot of great templates to get you started and is intuitive to use.
Consider researching industry-specific platforms, too. For example, if you have a restaurant, check out recommendations from Toast. While many of the platforms mentioned in this guide include restaurant-facing capabilities, on the Toast site, you’ll find several more.
Try to narrow this list down to a handful of potential platforms, then do some research into user experiences. Also, if there are websites that you love, see if you can find out which platform those businesses use. Then, think about your website in terms of where you are now and where you’d like your business to be in three to five years to help you decide.
Pursuit has financing available to help your business grow
Pursuit is a leading small business lender throughout New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Illinois, Nevada and Washington. We have a line of credit and loan options that can help you meet your business needs and support growth projects, such as website development, marketing solutions, and ecommerce.
Contact us to learn more about how we can help you grow your business.
