We are living in the age of technology, and if you are a small business owner, you are going to have to keep up with the times in order to ensure that you engage with your potential customers and your existing customers as conveniently and regularly as possible.
If you don’t, you will find that your competitors will start swiping customers from beneath your nose! Now, one of the best and easiest ways to keep up with technology is to make sure that you have a website and that your website is as mobile friendly as possible.
Building A Website
If you already have a website then you can skip this section, if not then read on.
You have two choices with getting yourself a website, doing it yourself or paying someone else to do it for you. In my lifetime I have done both. Web design can be very expensive and you will usually have to pay a monthly retainer so they can keep your site updated. Doing it yourself is actually fun and you can express yourself and your business perfectly. No one knows your business better than your self.
If you do not have the time or desire to build your own then I urge you to read my post on Local SEO and What is SEO. These will give you some background information so you can choose your web designer wisely. It is very easy to get ripped off.
If you are willing to do it yourself then it is a very easy process. You need a domain name and hosting. Most hosting companies give you the opportunity to buy the domain name through them. You should pay no more than $15. The hosting will have a monthly cost, the more you pay the better services you will have.
Whatever you do, do not go with a free website, it will limit what you can do and render your website useless. Always build it on a WordPress platform. Take a read of my best hosting companies to help you make a decision on where to host and build your website. I host mine at Wealthy Affiliate because I know my websites are secure, backed up daily and I have a huge amount of training resources and support which is second to none. I have crashed this site totally by adding a dodgy plugin and they put it all back within half an hour.
There is nothing hard about building your own website. Trust me if I can then anyone can.
If you already have a website for your small business then the next two sections are for you.
Developing an App
I am going to take a guess that you already use plenty of apps in your day to day life. These are the small square icons on the homepage of your smartphone that you use to open specialist software. But did you realise that you can develop an app for your own small business too? App Development allows you to create your own business programme that can help your customers in a variety of different ways.
Apps are actually much more easily accessible than your website for your customers. Users simply have to press an icon on their phone or tablet to access your products and process their transactions. This means that they can directly browse your products and services and easily make purchases.
Another positive way to use apps is to develop a loyalty or rewards app. Loyalty and reward cards are a great way to keep your customers coming back time and time again. Many people complain that they lose their physical cards and thus lose all of the rewards that they have gained. We have all done that! By having an app instead, their data can be saved and downloaded at any given time.
So, as you can see, an app can make shopping a simpler process for your customers and can also help to build brand loyalty. Now, these are two great benefits. But perhaps the best benefit of having an app on people’s phones or tablets is that you are visible to them at all times. Every time they unlock their phone or tablet, you will be right there on the screen, regardless of whether they are actively using your app, or are actually using their device to do something else. This will keep you in the back of their mind more often, and they are consequently more likely to click and browse your stock than they would be to type in your web address and use your website.
Optimising Your Website