According to a recent report, the UK business landscape is slowly improving.
While it’s still considered ‘normal growth’ compared to the business landscape pre-financial crisis, by today’s standards, it’s undeniably positive, with the UK now growing joint fastest in the G7 – equal to Canada, and outpacing Germany, Japan, Italy, France, and the US.
But despite the fact the UK is returning to a good business standard, there are many local businesses who are still failing to give themselves a leg-up.
In 2024, it’s estimated that businesses with websites will grow between 15% to 50% more compared to businesses that aren’t online, and yet around 2 million UK businesses still don’t have a website.
We wanted to find out why this is the case and explain exactly how a website can be a point of difference.
Websites for Local Businesses
The key reason why so many UK businesses don’t have a website is because they sell locally. When local trade is so significant, it’s easy to underestimate the importance of a website and instead focus on connecting with the community more traditionally.
Here at XIST2, however, we offer web design services in Oxford for both localised and non-local businesses, and there has never been a clear distinction between their results.
That is to say, both businesses selling locally and businesses selling globally see a wide range of benefits through creating an efficient, engaging website, even if those benefits aren’t exactly the same.
Benefits of a Website for Local Businesses
Let’s start with SEO. For many local businesses, one of the things putting them off building a website is the supposed ‘needlessness’ of effective SEO.
But the great thing about SEO is that it doesn’t have to target a broad reach – in fact, it’s often more effective and less competitive when it doesn’t.
More local SEO strategies – such as optimising for ‘near me’ searches – can drive even more foot traffic and target new customers more specifically. This helps to grow awareness while still building up the credibility of the company and its Google standings.
It’s also important to note that customers in 2024 are online, no matter whether they are local or not. If you’re a business working in Oxford, or Cornwall, or whatever region it happens to be, your prospective customers are still likely to search online for your services. By building a website, you can control what they see and make sure that your brand is being communicated effectively.
Content can also be community-orientated, including local event updates, customer testimonials, and blog posts that resonate with your specific local audience. All of this works to foster a strong connection with the community, while still enhancing the overall customer experience.
Paired with improved customer service (a website ensures local customers can access information 24/7, rather than only during business hours) and the opportunity to collect data, websites give hosts the chance to gather valuable data about local behaviours, preferences, and trends. This invaluable information is probably the best tool to catapult a company, locally-orientated or otherwise, towards higher engagement and profits.
Tips for Building an Effective Local Website
We mentioned that a good website should include local updates and cater to the immediate audience, but that doesn’t mean it should offer anything less than a globally oriented website would.
In fact, to stand out and compete, even in a local setting, it’s important to learn from the best and build a website that looks and feels as modern as possible.
This starts with a clean, uncluttered layout that allows for plenty of white space. – Overloading the site can easily put customers off and make the company come across as amateur.
It also involves easy navigation, with straightforward menus and breadcrumbs to help users understand where they are and where they can navigate next.
Your calls-to-action (CTAs) should also be on point. Just because you’re a local business, that doesn’t mean you’re the only choice.
In order to effectively guide visitors toward a purchase, it’s important to use prominent, action-orientated CTAs that stand out visually while still aligning with your overall design scheme. They shouldn’t be too ‘in-your-face’, of course, but just persuasive enough to direct a customer to a purchase that they want to make anyway, even if they don’t know it yet.
Conclusion
We’re not going to say that building a website is easy. It isn’t.
SEO can be a difficult journey, and regular maintenance and updates are always needed to ensure the site remains usable.
But with most customers searching for businesses and making their purchases online in 2024, it’s a must to create a dedicated online hub.
