There are hundreds of things that small businesses can do online to market their business, products or services, or for building their brand image. It’s needless to talk about the importance of a website that gets visitors, is easy to find on the web for relevant keywords, and attracts prospects with valuable information and resources. Of course, you already know what I just said, but very often we ignore all these aspects once the website is up and running. It won’t keep working and generating results endlessly unless we keep adding more value to it on a continuous basis.

Analyze your website and see where it’s lacking. Ask these questions: Does your website have a “hook” that makes the visitors move on to the next step? Are you able to give the important information and key links in the first view (above the fold) of your website? Can visitors connect with your site immediately by reading some of their key pain points for which they need a solution? Is the site well-designed and has as easy-to-follow structure? Do you offer various ways to get connected with prospects? These are just some of the angles to assess. You can even ask an external neutral person to look at your website and give feedback. It’s really important.

So what are the website related activities that you must invest your time and money in? Here’s a rundown of some of the vital tasks that small businesses must do:

• Keyword optimization: Some keywords have a lot of competition, so you must increase the density of those keywords by adding more and more articles, webpages, presentations, PDFs that are related to those important keywords. You can use Google Keyword Research tool to find the right words and phrases. You must come out as an expert in your field. Do remember to use your locality and city name frequently throughout your website, as people generally add that while searching for a specific service.
• Timely analytics: Make a habit of looking at your website visitor data every Friday evening or just any other time that suits your schedule. Learn how people land on your site, and the path they follow, and notice where they leave. These simple numbers and keywords will give you vital insights to make your website better. You will see that minor modifications can give you dramatic results.
• Building a well-connected website: Ensure that people can find what they are looking for with clear-cut navigation, simple sub-menus, related information links at the right places, easy contact details and maps, and important internal and external links wherever required.
• Possibilities to add more features: Your website design should be easy to expand and update frequently. Using a CMS based website or a simple WordPress website is great for small businesses that have limited budgets and do not want to pay endlessly to a web developer for site updates.  CMS and blogging tools also allow various widgets and plugins to make your website tech-savvy and easy to use.
• Blog: There’s no better way to keep adding more content to your site than through a blog. There are so many allied topics related to your work that you otherwise cannot put on your site, but you have the freedom to do so on your blog. You get a great platform to write informative keyword-rich content to attract more visitors and make them keep coming back. Engage in relevant conversations on your blog by answering to comments and writing thought provoking articles. Make sure you have an RSS feed of your blog too.
• Web forms: Have a simple form to collect online leads and ask only for information that is relevant for you – lesser the fields to fill, the better. If you have a lengthy form, people might just give it a miss or fill fake data which won’t be useful for you anyways. It’s best to get only the useful details and remember you can always collect the rest later. Offer incentives like coupons, discounts, free downloads, access to member resources, free trial, etc., to people who fill your web form.
• Lead management system: Do your website leads come to a mailbox and get lost after you take action? Small businesses usually end-up forgetting about old leads or save them in Excel files that are difficult to update. Use Gmail or Outlook Contact Manager to keep your list of leads safe and easy to use.
• Multi-media content: Simple text-based websites have lived their life to give way to fresh ideas and rich media websites that offer content in a dynamic way based on visitor preferences. If there are things that can be said better through pictures, diagrams, presentations, podcasts, videos, conversational articles, surveys, then they must be said that way only. Uncomplicate your content by using multi-media.
• Mobile version: The number of people using handheld devices for web browsing is increasing and this trend will grow even more, so it makes sense to have a small-screen version of your website that loads faster on mobile devices, has simple navigation, and easy-to-read content. Do analytics of mobile visitors as well.
• Visitor engagement: Use conversational tone, write simple language, let users decide what they want from your site, give them options, ask for permission, tell them about their privacy, offer them various ways to get connected with you, give them a platform to speak out/recommend/give feedback, provide help and support, have live chat – you can do a lot more to build a relationship with your visitors.
• Social media links: Which social media accounts should your business have is up to your preference and business needs, but having at least one such suitable outlet is a necessity. Whether you use LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter, make sure people can get connected with you easily through these channels. At the same time they should also be able to see what would they get by getting connected to you: is it timely information about the latest happenings, discount coupons, new releases, sales, etc.?

And lastly, the one single feature that will differentiate your website from the rest is:

• Credibility: Visitors should get that “warm and fuzzy feeling” when they review your website. Often small businesses have a small team and office premises that is not state-of-the-art, and hence they avoid giving such details on their website. By doing so, they simply make their website rank low on credibility. I have seen many websites that just have a form in the “contact us” page. It is essential to have details about your team, office location, phone numbers and privacy policy. Other things that add to credibility is demonstration of sufficient knowledge in your field through point of view articles, whitepapers, case studies, presentations, podcasts, videos, etc. Having genuine customer testimonials give a good boost to your website’s credibility.

Implement all these on your website and see the difference yourself. You cannot just build the website and forget about it for a long time. In order to make the best out of your website, you have to treat it like a business unit – find the right people to design and manage it, shower it with commitment, keep a track of what is happening on your website as well as other similar sites, and take genuine interest in its development.