A website is an essential part of any business marketing plan — and it can help expand your reach, customer base, and provide opportunities for generating revenue. Your website not only provides information about your business, products, and services, it can also be a great place to tell your customers that you have financing available.
According to a 2021 Synchrony survey, 87% of all major purchase shoppers who researched financing online used the retailer’s website.1 In fact, 25% of shoppers are completing their journey without ever entering a store, up from 16% in 2019.1
Having a website is a key marketing and sales tool. But, having a great website could help you be even more successful. Here are five steps to take to build and optimize a small business website.
Step 1: Determine How You’ll Use Your Website
A simple, well-organized website can be incredibly effective for a small business. First, decide the role your website will play in your business. It could be strictly informational, or you could use it to sell your products and services. It could stand alone, or it could integrate into other systems, like your POS.
Once you’ve decided what you want your website to do, then decide what success looks like. This could be things like tracking how many visitors you get, or how much revenue the site generates.
Step 2: Choose Your Tools & Build Your Website
Now it’s time to create your website. In the past, you may have had to hire a web designer and a developer, and spend considerable money on a website. Fortunately, now you can create your own website in as little as a few hours, at minimal cost. And, you don’t need a lot of computer skills to make a site that could work for your business
For a simple site, consider a website building tool, such as Wix, GoDaddy, or Square.2 These products make it very easy for you to add your messages, images, and organize the site. Once you’ve mapped out your site, then you can load product descriptions, images, and other information.
Step 3: Make a Plan & Create Your Site
After you’ve built and launched your website, you may want to add on tools to help with promoting your website, managing your customer relationships, and adding more robust cart features, including financing. Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Integrate your social media channels using plug-ins or the template provided on your website builder.
- Add a blog to your website using a content management system add-on or as part of your website builder.
- Integrate your customer relationship management software to help you track your customer data and market to your customers.
- If you’d like to sell via your website, add in an eCommerce platform for online sales, if you don’t have that functionality already available.
- Consider financing extensions for eCommerce so your consumers can apply and buy online using revolving credit and installment loans.
- Google Analytics offers a platform for free insights on your website’s performance and connects to other free products to help you test different updates.
Step 4: Keep it Fresh
A website is a living, breathing tool. Think of your website as a way to have an ongoing conversation between your business and your customers and prospects.
Keeping your website up-to-date and fresh doesn’t have to be complicated. This can be as simple as adding new products, and deleting products no longer available. A quick way to refresh your site is by changing the messaging on your homepage. Add news about sales and new products, to keep customers engaged.
Step 5: Analyze & Optimize
It’s important to track the performance of your website using the goals and metrics you chose before you launched your website. Measurements like number of website visitors and website revenue can show you if you are going in the right direction.
If you aren’t satisfied, you can make changes to your website to see if performance improves. You could change the image on your homepage to better represent your business, or add more information to your product description. Only test one thing at a time to get a clear result. Even a few hours a month spent updating, testing, and refining your website can pay off with a more engaged and loyal customer base.
Synchrony has over 80 years of retail heritage. Synchrony Connect is a value-added program that lets Synchrony partners tap into our expertise in areas beyond credit.
It offers knowledge and tools that can help you grow, lead and operate your business.
1. 8th Major Purchase Journey Study, August 2021, Synchrony
2.Minor, Jordan & Wilson, Jeffrey L. (2022, Feb. 1). The Best Website Builders for 2022.PCMag.com.