How Successful Small Businesses are Expanding their Websites

Most small businesses start with a simple website. You might include basic information about your products and services, contact information and maybe an “about us” page. As your business grows, however, your website probably will, too.

Over the years, we’ve had many small businesses come to us wanting a small website with little content and a small marketing budget. But as those businesses grow and gain more traction, we’ve seen that the vast majority of business owners decide to upgrade their websites and overall online presence to better reflect their growth.

Last year, Locallogy introduced our very own website platform called the Locallogy Rapid Platform. Initially, we saw this as a great opportunity for clients looking to upgrade their websites with a cost-effective service that lets them customize their site. We quickly saw that this was a popular option with small business owners—both current and new clients—who wanted to update their websites without blowing their marketing budgets.

As the internet becomes an increasingly important method to reach customers, growing small businesses are expanding their websites and audience reach in a variety of ways.

Here’s what they’re doing.

Whether business owners have been our clients for years and seen steady growth or they are coming to us for the first time looking for an improvement on their current website, we’ve done a lot of website redesigns in the past several years. The more traffic and sales you see from your website, the more your website should reflect that growth.

Without a doubt, the most common step we’ve seen successful small businesses take is upgrading their websites to make them more responsive to mobile devices.

Particularly for our clients who have had the same website for several years but have been on the fence about an upgrade, the introduction of our Locallogy Rapid Platform proved to become a popular option. The cost-effectiveness, ease of use and customizabilitymake it a great solution for small businesses that want to expand their website and make it responsive to various mobile devices without spending too much.

Even for those business owners who aren’t our clients, an upgraded website is a telltale sign of growth and success in your business. So if you haven’t updated your content or web design in recent years but are continuing to expand, you might want to consider a website upgrade.

We constantly preach about the importance of getting , displaying and responding to online reviews . And as trends have continuously shown more and more consumers relying on business reviews before buying in, our clients have made an effort to get more high-quality reviews.

In fact, many of our clients who have seen growth from a website redesign decide to take their business to the next level by incorporating reviews into their marketing strategy, and even displaying reviews on their own site .

Two of our services we frequently see successful businesses adding to their website are our Review Builder.  This service help businesses gain reviews from happy clients on a variety of websites and display those positive reviews on their own company website. Additionally, it helps clients maintain a steady stream of new and relevant reviews, which can positively impact your SEO and rankings.

With some sort of product or personal system in place, small businesses are seeing continued success from customers who chose their business based on a large amount of online reviews.

With the large role social media plays today, business pages and profiles have become an extension of a company’s website. Many small businesses are hopping on the bandwagon to expand their audience reach through these platforms. In fact, many small businesses nowadays become successful because of social media.

As a small business owner, increasing your social media reach with advertising allows you to connect with more consumers on a more personal level.

From Facebook to Twitter, LinkedIn to Instagram, advertising on social media is often seen as an effective way to connect to a targeted group of consumers. We’ve seen the most success with Facebook ads, since it is the most widely used platform, which is why we’ve added Facebook Advertising to our lineup of digital marketing services.

Whether you just have one or two platforms you manage yourself or you choose to hire a social media ad manager to professionally handle all your accounts, an increased presence in social media advertising is probably a sign that your business has grown enough that you can focus on areas outside of your actual services.

Not only is it crucial to have an updated website, but it’s also important to make sure people are coming to your website in the first place. And for successful companies, this means using paid advertising to reach a targeted audience.

Many small businesses come to us with the idea that paid advertising is out of their reach, simply because it’s an added cost that takes time and skill to maintain.

In reality, PPC is actually more useful as an upfront service because it helps you get immediate results.

Adding a PPC campaign to your digital marketing strategy can help boost your online presence, and in turn, increase website traffic and customers. It’s an investment that both your website and your business will benefit from.

These are just a few of the steps we have seen small businesses take with their website and online presence to continue their success. If your small business has seen steady growth and expansion, consider these upgrades to be your next move.