Building a Small Business Website in 2021: What You Need to Know

Building a Small Business Website in 2021: What You Need to Know

If you’re a small business owner whose business survived 2020, congratulations – and get ready for the world of 2021.

The COVID-19 pandemic permanently and dramatically changed the way that consumers shop and interact with businesses, leaving many small business owners scrambling to catch up and figure out where they fit into the new normal. Luckily, many potential customers’ first experience with a business will be its website, providing you the perfect opportunity to show off how you’ve adapted.

These four tips will help ensure your small business website stays ahead of the pack in 2021.

Load Times Matter

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: consumers are impatient. According to web design firm TDA, 53% of users will abandon a website if it takes more than three seconds to load. And that’s not all: TDA found that reducing a webpage’s load time by six seconds can boost conversion rates by almost 75%!Snail on hands of a clock

You can minimize loading times in several ways. First, choose a hosting company that guarantees a particular “uptime” percentage of at least 99.90%. As Website Builder Expert notes, “Tenths of a percentage may seem trivial, but the difference between 99.90% uptime and 99.95% uptime comes out to 4 hours and 23 minutes less downtime per year.” (Emphasis in the original.)

Second, ensure your images, videos, and other files are compressed and optimally sized for fast loading. Huge files slow loading times way down, potentially leading to customer frustration and site abandonment.

Finally, don’t overdo it with plugins. We love WordPress and plugins are great, but if there are too many or they’re not properly installed, they just bog down your website.

Mobile is King

By now, you probably know that mobile responsiveness on a small business website is almost as essential as the website itself. Five hours per day is now the average amount of time an individual spends on his or her smartphone, and that number is likely to continue rising.

Woman sitting cross-legged on a couch browsing on her smartphone

But perhaps even more importantly is the reason that people are using their mobile devices: to determine who they actually want to do business with. While it’s true that many people still head to their desktop or laptop to actually make a purchase, the research phase of a customer’s buying journey is overwhelmingly done on a smartphone or tablet. In other words, your website absolutely must make a good impression on mobile to improve your chances of a sale later on.

Remote is Here to Stay

And we’re not talking about working from home. Following a year of quarantine, curbside and home delivery have become standard for almost every business that can pull it off – and so should yours. If you’re a photographer, your website should feature socially distanced in-home sessions. If you do car detailing, add an option at checkout for driveway service. Even traditionally brick and

mortar-only businesses can offer videoconferencing and email-based service. Two years ago, it made little sense not to see a doctor in person; now, almost everyone has experienced “telemedicine.”

Don’t wait for things to return to pre-2020 conditions. Use your website to show potential customers that you’re ahead of the curve and that they can trust your business.

Bad Design Will Kill Business

Another truth that bears repeating. With prospective clients at home and spending even more time than usual online, they’re looking more closely at websites and noticing more of the little things they might otherwise not.

In 2021, consumers expect – and in some cases, even demand – a visually appealing, highly functional website that was built with their experience in mind. If your small business website is ugly, unintuitive, or hard to navigate, you’ll lose business faster than you can say “redesign.”

Your small business website should be a fast-loading, well-designed investment that invites customers in and gives them every reason to stay (and buy). Wondering if your website is equipped to handle consumers in 2021? Get in touch! Red Tree Designs specializes in creating beautiful, up-to-date, on-trend websites for Atlanta’s small business owners – even during a pandemic!

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