Many small businesses have now entered the digital age. Gone are the days where potential customers might research tradesmen in the Yellow Pages or other physical directories. Nowadays, your small business can fairly compete against far larger corporate competitors. But what if you don’t have a business website?
There’s no escaping the fact that to market your business properly, a business website is your best option. Without it, you’re missing out on the millions of internet searchers that look for local businesses online.
Professional Business Websites
A professional business website will give your users a great first impression. If you entered a physical business premises that was cluttered, disorganized and felt unsafe, would you want to do business with them? Probably not. The same logic should apply to your website.
When your website is easy to use and navigate, you’re more likely to convert users. A professional web designer will consider the user journey. They do this by building menus and CTAs (call-to-actions) that direct users to the desired end-goal. This goal is known as a conversion. What you consider to be a conversion will vary, depending on the nature of your business. An ecommerce website would probably consider a purchase to be a conversion. A tradesman might say that a user has converted when they’ve used the contact button. Some websites may only want users to sign up to an email newsletter.
It’s a good idea to consider what the goal of your website is before you start creating it.
Lead-Driven Web Design
This brings us to lead-driven web design. This is how we think all web designers should approach building a business website.
What’s the point in having a beautiful website designed to attract and engage users, without a clear journey? If it’s not obvious what you want your site visitors to do (enter their email, make a phone call, purchase a product etc.) then you risk losing out on a conversion.
Local SEO
Local businesses need local SEO. Make sure that your website is going to appear to users that are within your service area. There’s no point in conducting a national SEO campaign if you’re a plumber who only serves a small area of Cornwall. To ensure that your small business website is successful, make sure it’s optimised for your local area.
The best SEO campaigns start with extensive research of keywords and local competitors. From there, you need to take steps to optimise your website, so that it’s more likely to appear at the top. Everything will need to be refined and improved, from your written content through to your security features.
Responsive Web Design
We know that the majority of searchers will try to find local services using their smartphones. This means that your small business website needs to be responsive. If you’re unable to display your services clearly and accurately to users on their mobiles, you’re going to miss out on their custom.
If that wasn’t bad enough, you also run the risk of not being indexed on Google. Google now crawls the mobile version of websites first, because they want to ensure that their results will meet the demands of the millions of searchers using their mobile.
Let Your Testimonials Shine
Potential customers who haven’t used your services yet are likely to make a decision based on your reviews. If you’ve got lots of glowing testimonials from existing customers, you need to display them on your business website.
This is particularly important on websites for tradesmen, as the quality of their services is best reflected in the words of their happy customers. Displaying your reviews helps to build trust with new clients, helping you to grow your business and achieve success.
What Makes Web Design For Tradesmen Different?
Web design for tradesmen is different to that of ecommerce websites, because the end goal is to get users to make contact with you. You may need them to book a service or request a free quote or valuation for your services.
This is why the content that websites for tradesmen needs to have is different. You need to be informative about the services that you offer, and make it clear to your audience why they should pick your company to do the job.
What Benefits Do Websites Have For Small Businesses?
If you’re not able to be found online, you’re missing out on a huge number of local customers that are searching for your services. You can’t rely on being found through word of mouth or directories, as that’s no longer enough.
Customers want to make an informed decision before investing in services from local tradesmen. Therefore, it’s really important that you have a professional business website that reflects your company in the best light.
An Example Of Web Design For Tradesmen
If you’re wondering what a good example of successful web design for tradesmen might look like, why not take a look at some of our case studies? A fantastic example would be GASLEC, a company who are local to us. They benefit from our Exeter-based web designer’s talents. They created a website to GASLEC’s exact specifications, with detailed service pages and a well-organised menu.
You Build Your Business, We’ll Build Your Business Website
Search4Local specialise in building websites for tradesmen. We know that it takes years to acquire the skills you need to carry out your trade, so why waste any more time on building a website? The web design packages that we offer are designed to be affordable for SMEs, without compromising on quality.
Written by Alice Farley
