Small Business Website Development Guide

Small Business Website Development Guide

7 Essential Things to Know for your next website

The Small Business Website Development Guide to

Attracting More Visitors, Converting Clicks to Customers, and Standing Out in a Sea of Digital Information

The Bright Orange Thread team created this guide to specifically address small business challenges and to provide best practices to better utilize the web in support of small business outreach and marketing efforts.

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Small Business Website Development Guide:

Seven Essential Things to Know for Your Next Website

The Challenge

How do most people find a business or service today? Search engines. Internet search engines have essentially replaced the Yellow Pages as the primary source for finding information, and businesses have to embrace this change to continue growing. Most small business organizations today have a web presence. What is the real challenge experienced by a large majority of these businesses? They know their web presence should be doing more to help support and grow their business--they just don't have a clear understanding of how to go about doing this.

Of course there are a number of services and tools available--from web hosting companies and search engine optimization services, to content management tools, and email marketing providers--all of which make great claims regarding how they can help. But most of these are merely pieces to an overall picture. There are very few resources that provide a clear answer to the basic small business question: "How can I better utilize our web presence to bring in more business and really stand out in my industry?"

Bright Orange Thread

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Small Business Website Development Guide:

Seven Essential Things to Know for Your Next Website

The Framework for Success

This Website Guide has been created specifically to address small business challenges and to provide best practices to better utilize the web in support of small business outreach and marketing efforts. The phrase small business can have different interpretations, so for the purposes of this guide it will be defined as a business with 2 to 200 employees.

The information contained herein applies to the three primary types of websites utilized by small businesses:

1. Active Marketing Sites An active marketing site is a standard website that includes built-in marketing tools such as data collection forms, landing pages, web ads, integrated email marketing, or even social media tools (blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.).

2. Business Transaction Sites A business transaction site can include the same tools as an active marketing site but also has an e-commerce function, an integrated database function, or a combination of both.

3. Informational Sites Informational sites are for businesses that do not currently have a strong need for active marketing or business transactions, but still require a web presence to provide the basic information about their business and stand out in their industry.

No matter which site you currently have or aspire to create for your business, this Website Guide provides a framework for attracting more visitors, bringing in more business, and standing out in your particular industry.

Bright Orange Thread

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Small Business Website Development Guide:

Seven Essential Things to Know for Your Next Website

The seven essentials things to know 1. Analyze Your Current Site's Assets (Analytics) 2. Define Who You Want to Find You (Target Audience & Objectives) 3. Be Found (SEO & SEM) 4. Write Effective Copy (Information Architecture) 5. Stand Out (Good Design) 6. Offer Fresh Content (Fresh Content & Content Management Systems) 7. Reach Out to Your Audience (Email Marketing & Social Media Marketing)

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