6 Small Business Website Tips

In today’s online marketing world, business owners may feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices they face and end up making decisions that aren’t necessarily the best for their business. Nowhere is this more apparent than when it comes to the foundation of a business’ online presence: your website.

When you begin the process of building a new website (or updating your old one), there are a few main points to keep in mind that are simple, yet extremely important. Remembering these simple tips will ensure your website helps your business connect effectively online with current and potential customers.

Why a Well-Designed website Matters

A well-crafted website does more than just look polished; it establishes credibility from the very first click. For many customers, visiting your site is their initial introduction to your business—think of it as your digital handshake. Even if you don’t sell products online, a professional website reassures customers that your business is legitimate, reliable, and invested in providing value.

Beyond first impressions, your website is the one place online you truly control. With all the changes in algorithms on Facebook, Google, and other platforms, your website remains your own slice of digital real estate. Here, you can share up-to-date information, showcase testimonials, answer common questions, and gently guide visitors toward making contact or purchasing—all on your terms.

Plus, a well-structured site makes it easy for both customers and search engines to trust you. Clear navigation, consistent branding, and helpful content mean visitors stay longer and come back again. This builds a foundation for growth, helping you turn curious browsers into loyal customers and advocates.

1. Have Only One Website

Think of your website as the digital home base of your business. Websites should be easy for your customers to find, and always there when they need the information and services it provides. If you have multiple websites,

• Your customers will not know which site is the right one and may be confused
• You won’t be able to drive traffic effectively and measure your website traffic growth
• Search engines will not be able to trust you. If you have one site that delivers consistent and accurate information, the search engine then knows it can trust it enough to show it to searchers.

If you aren’t happy with your current website and want a new one, it is extremely important to make sure you take the old site down. Don’t make people sift through multiple websites to figure out which one is the most current or accurate.

2. Own Your Own Domain

A domain is your website’s address on the internet, or what people type into their browser’s address bar to get to your website (i.e. www.yourbusiness.com). If you own your own domain, your website will look something like www.yourbusiness.com, which is easier to remember and supports your brand.

Letting another party own your website domain reduces the amount of control you have over your website, including the credibility you establish with your visitors and the trust you build with search engines. It’s also a good idea to avoid having multiple domains.

That said, if you want to capture common misspellings or variations of your business name, you can register additional domains and have them all point to your main website. Just make sure you’re not creating separate sites for each domain—that can actually hurt your search rankings and confuse your audience.

Make Your Website Discoverable

Even the best-designed website won’t help your business if people can’t find it. That’s where search engines like Google come in. Most people will find your business online through search, and usually, they won’t look beyond the first page of results. This makes it essential to appear as high as possible for relevant keywords.

Search engines use a few key steps to determine where your website appears in search results:

• Crawling: Search engines discover your site by following links from other websites. The more credible sites that link to yours, the easier it is for search engines to find and trust your site.

• Indexing: Once found, your site is analyzed for content, keywords, freshness, relevance, links, and multimedia. Regularly update your website with relevant, keyword-focused content to help search engines understand what your business offers.
  
  
• Ranking: Search engines rank your site based on relevance (how well your content matches the search query) and authority (the size of your site, the amount of traffic you get, and how many respected sites link to yours).

Investing even a little time in search engine optimization (SEO)—from keyword research to updating your site with helpful, targeted content—can pay off by bringing more visitors to your digital doorstep. If you’re not sure where to start, consider consulting with professionals who can help with web development, SEO, and content marketing to ensure your website is set up for both customers and search engines.

3. Build Your Website for Your Customer

It’s important that your business website promotes your business and explains the value it brings, but the manner in which it does that is important. You want your website to promote your business as a solution for your customers, and convey the value it brings to them.

Yes, injecting your personality and personal tastes into your website can help to personalize and humanize your business, but once again, this should be in a way that resonates with your ideal customer.

Don’t be afraid to get personal. Just as a thoughtfully designed storefront invites people into a brick-and-mortar business, your website should reflect the unique character of your business and create a welcoming online experience. Consider including a well-crafted "About Us" page that goes beyond a block of dry facts—share your story, your values, and, when appropriate, a good photo of yourself or your team. This personal touch can help visitors connect with your business on a human level, making your brand more approachable and memorable.

The priority with your business website is in satisfying, engaging, and retaining visitors who can benefit from your business.

4. Think of Your Website as an Experience

Your business website isn’t just a brochure that tells interested prospects about your business. It is an experience that a visitor has with your business each time he or she visits your website. It’s an experience from which visitors will make observations and collect information that guides their future decisions related to your business.

It is of the utmost importance to make sure that your website visitors not only get the information they need and see the value your business brings, but in an easy, satisfying and hassle-free way. To do so, follow these tips:

• Make sure your navigation bar is intuitive and geared toward what users are looking for in your site.
• Avoid auto-play music or videos or full-screen popups that make users feel forced into an experience.
• Interconnect your website pages with internal linking, so they can seamlessly move throughout your site without having to press the back button too much or return to the homepage every time.
• Make your website responsive so that it functions properly on any device. With so many people spending hours each day browsing and shopping from their mobile phones and tablets, ensuring your website looks and works great on every screen is essential. If visitors land on your site and have trouble navigating or reading content on their mobile devices, there’s a good chance they’ll leave and find a competitor whose site is easier to use. Not only does a poor mobile experience drive away potential customers, but it can also hurt your search engine rankings, making it harder for people to find you online.

A responsive website adapts seamlessly to desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones, offering an optimal experience for every visitor—no pinching, zooming, or awkward scrolling required.

Prioritize Website Speed and Performance

The speed at which your website loads has a massive influence on your visitors’ experience and, ultimately, their decision to stick around or move on. Slow-loading pages can quickly send customers packing before they ever see what your business offers, and can also dampen the chances they'll make a purchase or inquiry. In fact, research shows that most users won’t wait long for a page to load—and lost patience often means lost business.

To keep your site snappy and welcoming, try these practical tips:

• Regularly update your website’s software, including plugins and content management systems, to ensure optimal performance.
• Compress images and videos so they load quickly without sacrificing visual quality. Tools like TinyPNG or Adobe Photoshop make this easy.
• Choose a reliable web host designed to handle your expected traffic—think about scalable options from providers like SiteGround or Bluehost.
• Minimize the use of heavy scripts and unnecessary plugins that can bog down your page speed.

A quick, seamless site not only wins over human visitors, but also lets search engines know you care about user experience—which can boost your online visibility even further.

5. Use Original Content

Your business website is a vital part of your content marketing strategy. Whether it’s your products and services page, about us page, or blog posts, your content should never be taken from another website (which is plagiarism and will hurt your credibility and reputation) or duplicated from another online channel of yours (which can compromise your SEO).

If you do utilize content created by others always give attributes and bylines.

High-quality content is a must for your website, but it doesn’t have to be stressful. Writing like a human, in a language your audience can understand, and being helpful and informative are the pillars of high-quality content.

6. Make it Easy for Website Visitors to Engage

With an intuitive and easy-to-navigate website, your users are more likely to get the information and build the trust they need to follow through with an action that is important to your business. As mentioned above, your website isn’t just a brochure, it’s a channel through which potential customers can engage and interact with your business.

Whether it’s contacting you for a quote, downloading a piece of content, signing up for your email list, or making a purchase, make it as easy as possible for visitors to perform this action. Do this by:

• Including relevant call to action buttons on multiple pages of your website
• Using effective call to action phrases that invite people to act
• Making your CTAs easy to see (in particular, above the fold and in a place that users will expect it to be)
• Keep your forms short and easy to fill out quickly.

Make Contact Information Impossible to Miss

While designing your business website for an intuitive, seamless experience, don’t bury your contact details somewhere deep in the site. Instead, ensure your phone number, email address, or contact button shows up right at the top of your homepage—what designers call “above the fold.”

Why? It’s simple: you want potential customers to reach you without frustration or guesswork. No one enjoys combing through multiple pages just to find a way to get in touch. The faster you make that pathway, the more likely visitors are to act—whether that’s booking a service, requesting a quote, or asking a question.

Easy-to-find contact information signals professionalism and builds trust. Whether someone’s on their laptop in a coffee shop or quickly browsing on mobile between errands, having your details visible means you’re just a tap or click away.

A few best practices:

• Place essential details (phone number, email, contact button) at the top of every page for instant visibility.
• Add your social media links to the header or footer for those who prefer to connect in other ways.
• Use icons or contrasting colors to make these items stand out without overwhelming your design.

By making it easy for people to engage with your website, you can turn your website into a lead-generating machine for your business.

Your website is your business’ online establishment. You wouldn’t put up with a confusing and messy set-up in a physical storefront, so your website should be no different. You want customers to find what they need to know, trust that the information is valid, and be able to get in touch without a lot of hassle. Make it easy and the customers will come to you.

As posted on ThriveHive