It’s well documented that if you have a business, you should have a website. Yet as many as 60 percent of small businesses in the United Kingdom didn’t have an online presence in 2012, according to The Guardian.
The reasons people give for not having a website often stem from believing their business, including beauty shops or driving instruction, is an offline one. Another reason they give is that they don’t have the budget for it. But Hubspot reports that 78 percent of Internet users research products online, so your site could be a customer’s first connection to you.
The right web development services can build a site to help you increase business leads for faster return on your investment. There are several factors that they can implement to ensure your site becomes a lead generator.
Make it work. The site has to load quickly and be easy to interact with. About 40 percent of people will abandon a web page if it takes more than three seconds to load, according to Econsultancy. The change in a website bounce rate spikes to 100 percent when a page takes 4 seconds or more to load, according to Mobile Joomla. It jumps to 150 percent if a page takes 8 seconds or more to load. The right web development services will work to ensure your site doesn’t get abandoned.
Make sure it’s optimized for search engines. Your site is only valuable if potential customers actually see it. You need to know if your web development services company keeps up with the latest search engine algorithms. It’s an extra bonus if they understand the importance of stickiness, lower bounce rates and increased engagement.
Incorporate social media. It’s important to integrate your site with social media platforms to increase visibility. About 41 percent of B2B companies and 67 percent of B2C companies have acquired a customer through Facebook, according to Hubspot. And 57 percent of businesses have acquired a customer through their company blog. The more your company is “out there,” the more people will come across it in their day to day behaviors.
Make it responsive. Mobile sales have overtaken desktop sales, and mobile Internet usage also is predicted to overtake its desktop counterpart this year, according to Search Engine Watch. That is just one of the factors pointing to the need for responsive design.
Responsive design adjusts to the user. It works in various browsers and screen sizes, such as smartphones and tablets, adjusting to fit the screen on which the site is being viewed. An example of why it’s so important is that 48 percent of users say that if they arrive on a business site that isn’t working well on mobile, they take it as an indication of the business simply not caring, according to MarginMedia.
So what about “being an offline business” and “not able to afford it” being reasons for not having a website?Even if your customers might not be able to use your service online, think about the fact that your website can communicate with potential customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days of the year.And while you might think you can’t afford web development services, can you really afford not to have it?