Company websites can be an important and useful addition to small business (SMBs), even more so in today's digital world. This guide lays out the important points of a successful and modern company website.

Small and medium businesses or SMBs play an instrumental role in the development of any economy in the world especially in the developing world. The main contributor in the GDP of any developing country is supposed to be SMBs. Along with the SMBs, micro industry is also considered as a very fundamental contributor to the GDP as well as employment opportunities in any dynamic developing countries. For example, Malaysia is one of the fast growing economies in Asia Pacific region. The contribution of small, medium and micro business is amazingly awesome. Those small categories of businesses contributed over 32.7% of the GDP in year 2012, and it is anticipated that the share of those business entities will cross 41% in the total GDP of the country by the year 2020.

A Simple Guide to Small Business for 2015

According to the SME Census 2011, the total number of registered SMBs was over 645 thousands and it the number crossed the 1 million mark by the end of 2012. At present, the number of small and medium industries has almost crossed the 2 million mark. The total share of SMBs in country’s all business establishments stood at 97.3% in the year 2011 that rose to 99.2% in 2012. A large number of over 5 million micro businesses – proprietary or partnership entities – are also registered in the country. Owing to this exploding growth of SMBs and micro businesses in the country, a huge scope of ICT and other services for those entities has appeared in the marketplace. Almost similar kind of business situations are developing in surrounding countries that share common geographical and demographical resources in the region.

The main objective of all those SMBs and micro business entities is to tap the market potentials with the help of their skills and expertise to earn lucrative profits in the market. This huge presence of small and medium size business creates a fierce competition in the marketplace. To create a competitive edge over the other competitors, many companies choose the latest ICT solutions and technologies in their business solutions. The powerful online presence through website is one of the most fundamental tools that play critical role in the sustainable development of their businesses.

Meantime, the SMEs census 2011 points out to a very important thing related to the use of ICT power in their small and micro businesses. According to the report, 73% of those companies did not use ICT in their business processes; and, more than 33% of them were not even using internet. Similarly, the use of online marketing media was not encouraging; more than 90.4% of micro business entities were not using any kind of online media to market their products or services. The situation with SME was also not so good. This brings in a great opportunity for the modern web development services in the marketplace. There were more than 88% of SMEs and micro business establishments without a proper website for their respective online business presence. To tap the power of ICT and especially the web development into business growth of small and medium sized industries, it is very imperative to implement the most state of the art trends and features in the online websites. The modern trends of web development are discussed below.

Responsive Design for Company Websites

Modern Trends

Nowadays, a website is not an online presence of any business, but it is a complete online business establishment whose purpose is wide ranging and comprehensive. The website should have the following capabilities.

  • Should be able to present the product or service attractively
  • Should be able to draw the customers through different apparatus
  • Should be able to engage the visitor different state of the art techniques
  • Should be able to covert visit into sales
  • Should provide confidence to be part of it in future

In short, a website should be able to show itself to the interested customers, bring them to the website, and engage to remain on the website, provide interactive guidance, and lure to make purchases on the website. To achieve those objectives, the website design trends that will help to accomplish those goals in this year (2015) are elaborated in perspective here.

Best Appearance

The appearance of a website always plays a vital role fascinating the visitor to stay on the website and have a deeper perspective of the content available on it. Different researches pointed out that 75% of the visitors make decision about the credibility of the website based on its appearance design, and more than 94% of visitors make their first impression based on its outlook. Therefore, the best appearance will help establish a strong bond between your company and the online visitors. The appearance of the website should implement the following best communication features on a webpage.

  • Minimal and specific of content
  • Use unique and artistic images
  • Use bold typography matching work character
  • Use well positioned, attractive colored, proper sized and appealing Call-to-Act buttons
  • Use very sober and professional background in website

Example Responsive Web Design 1

 

SEO & Marketing Friendly

Nowadays, the way people shop has changed drastically; as suggested in research studies, as much as 85% of B2B customers search for the websites though searching engines before making purchasing decisions. If your website implements proper tags, metadata and other SEO friendly tools in its web development process as well as in marketing campaigns, there are substantial chances that your website becomes the most searched one in the online marketplace. According to a research conducted in Q2 of 2012, more than 39% of small business revenue comes from search engine purchases. This ratio has increased even more than that in recent years. Therefore, it is very critical that SEO friendly website development is going to be an integral web development trend for the year 2015.

Business Intelligence Incorporation

As we know that small businesses have their own constraints related to budgets, resources and use of high cost automations in their business processes. To achieve the maximum results, it is very important to research about the targeted market segments that the website is focusing on to find out the demographics, their browsing behavior, shopping trends and other information and implement those results in the web development designs. This helps businesses to remain focused to their respective objectives and will help in achieving their business bottom lines without over encompassing irrelevant things or segments. Many recent studies suggest that different people from different age bracket purchase differently through online shopping; more than 54% of shoppers in Malaysia shop once or more than one time online on a monthly basis. To create a competitive edge over the competitors, the SMEs should include BI information in their webpage designs this year.

Personalization of Information

The personalization of information or content has already become a big factor in attracting substantial business to small and medium sized business. According to a recent study, more than 94% of entrepreneurs believe that personalization has a big impact on business growth. At present, more than half of the population of Malaysia use internet via mobile phones; and in such conditions, the impact of personalization will pervasive. You can help mobile users through personalized content that seem to be attractive for him. You can also send welcome, future offers, and other suggestions based on his or her internet using behavior. This is going to leave a desirable impact on business in the year 2015 and beyond.

Responsive for All Devices

Mobile phones and tablets have become very popular across all segments of population across the globe. The same phenomenon is being extensively observed in Malaysia and elsewhere in the region. In the mid of 2012, there were as much as 32% of mobile internet users in Malaysia and almost the same type of ratio in surrounding countries in the region. The number of internet users through mobile and tablets is increasing very fast. On the other hand, there are more than 70% SMEs that have no website at all and more than half of the existing websites of small businesses are not conformable to smoothly support all devices such as, mobile, laptops, computers, tablets and other devices.

It is very critical for small businesses, in 2015, to opt for this trend to have responsive websites to cover all segments of customers across the globe.

References