Essential Website Design Tips to Spur Growth for Your Business
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Guest written by Jenna Sherman of parent-leaders.com
These days, few things are more important for small businesses than creating and maintaining a professional-grade website. About 69% of U.S. consumers have shopped online at least once, and many of those individuals do it regularly. Moreover, all the evidence shows that we can expect that trend to continue rising in the years ahead.
If your company does not currently have a website that is built to help your enterprise grow, now is the time to seriously consider investing in one. Below, Penta West has provided a crash course on how to design a site that takes your business to the next level!
Hire Professionals
As your first step, look for qualified professionals who can help you accomplish your web design goals. Because it is a complex field, it can be difficult to build your own website when you have minimal experience. But working with experts is an excellent way to ensure that your site can be everything you need it to be!
If necessary, you can use inexpensive online tools to help flesh out your website while you save money to hire a professional web designer. For example, make use of free graphic logo design tools online that allow you to put together a logo for your website easily and quickly. These can serve as placeholders until you can hire a professional to give your ideas a truly unique look.
Understand CRM and ERP
It’s critical that your CRM tools and ERP system are integrated, as it will vastly improve productivity and efficiency in your operations. CRM (customer relationship management) software basically tracks important customer data and information and uses analytics to project insights for how you can retain your customers and boost referrals. CRM software works on the front end of your website and interacts with customers to boost sales.
The function of ERP (enterprise resource planning) software is to centralize your company processes and workflows. By simplifying everything from your planning and scheduling to your order history and fulfillment, the right ERP software can do wonders for streamlining your various processes, thus making it easier to manage your business overall. ERP systems work on the back end of your site.
Integrate Your CRM and ERP Systems
If you want to take productivity and efficiency to the next level, you will need to integrate your CRM and ERP systems. This will allow you to link any essential financial information—including shipping, billing, and purchase history data—with your fulfillment and inventory data, as well as your supply chain tools. To integrate the two systems, you will need to connect and synchronize them, which will automate information sharing. In other words, the inventory your customers see on your site will be the exact inventory you have in your store.
Boost Traffic to Your Site
Along with integrating your CRM and ERP systems, you will want to use every tool at your disposal to drive more traffic to your website. Your site must be SEO-friendly so that more consumers will come across it on search engines. Your landing pages and blogs should incorporate keywords that consumers are currently searching for, and all of your content should be laid out in an easy-to-read format. The Google keyword planner tool is an excellent way to choose keywords for your content.
Also, work with Penta West to place Google and social media advertisements, which can help promote your business and drive traffic to your website.
Increase Conversions on Your Site
Getting more users on your website is crucial, but the ultimate goal is to convert your audience into buyers. Having well-structured web pages is a great first step, but you will want to take other measures to boost sales.
Make sure you have clearly defined goals for your website, use visitor data that you collect to make improvements to your site, and encourage customers to leave testimonials and reviews that can help build your reputation in the industry. Moreover, every page of your site should load quickly and customers should be able to navigate your site and make purchases seamlessly.
Small businesses these days must have a website that is built to spur growth. Remember to find professionals who can help you in your web design strategy and integrate your CRM and ERP software. Also, learn how you can drive more traffic to your site and boost conversions each day. While there is much more to designing a site that takes your company to the next level, the tips above will get you off to a strong start!