Launching your own business can be a significant undertaking. There are many aspects to consider—operations, processes, labor, inventory, and marketing. Marketing for local business start-ups is critical for your company to take off and get in front of the community.
Managing the many aspects of digital marketing can be overwhelming. The most critical asset in your marketing strategy is your website. We’re sharing some essential tips that small business start-ups will appreciate.
Define Your Website Goals
First, you want to develop the objectives your website will accomplish. That varies depending on the type of business. For eCommerce options, your website has to become an online store.
For others, a website defines what services you offer and to whom. The goal for a website in this category would be to attract customers, engage them, and drive them to convert. That conversion could be a call to request service or foot traffic at your physical store.
When identifying your goals and how customers would use your website, always consider their experience and make it easy to navigate and find information.
Choose a Flexible Template
Most WordPress websites use a template. Many of its components regarding layout and styling are changeable. Your website’s purpose and how visitors will use it will influence the theme you select. Make sure it’s a template that won’t limit future growth and that adding new pages or features won’t be an issue.
Create a Design Aesthetic
If you’ve already got your branding elements—logo, color palettes, and fonts—they’ll be the start of this digital mood board. Your template will also guide this, but you should work with designers and developers to build a website with consistent branding and digital representation of your company.
Some other design features to consider are:
- Photos versus illustrations (you could use both)
- White space (you’ll want some for easy readability on mobile)
- Breaks between sections
- Spacing
- Backgrounds
- Headings and other formatting
Outline Navigation and Content
Once you have a design plan, you’ll need to focus on the meat of the website—the navigation and content. Navigation should be intuitive and simple on any device. Not every page on your website will be on the top navigation. Decide where you want visitors to land the most (e.g., product pages, conversion pages, shopping areas).
Content will also shape your navigation. Start by making a complete list of every page you think your website should have. Then bullet point the content you expect to go on the page. You’ll want to compare layouts with text so that you’re writing to the design. That may mean you want to limit character count in certain areas. Another aspect of this is where you’ll place button links.
Align Your Planning with Execution
Once you have these fundamental pieces in place, you should tap a professional web design firm specializing in small, local businesses. These teams have the experience and expertise to be true advisors as you build your website. They are experts at marketing for local business start-ups. They’ll let you know what’s possible and what areas you should optimize to ensure you get local traffic from search engines.
You’ll find such a team at AQ Marketing. We help local start-ups with website design, SEO, and more. Contact us today to get started.
