When you’ve just started, having a website is the key to doing business, especially in the digital age. For customers and general users, your website is a source of information on your products and services.

A well-designed website is integral to promote your business, drive target customers, and build a brand identity.

A well thought out website, in terms of web architecture, should be user-friendly. This makes for easier navigation through the site and keeps visitors browsing and stay longer — avoiding bounce rate.

A responsive web design (RWD) is also necessary. It’s an approach, which makes the web pages render well on various devices and window or screen sizes. As the amount of mobile traffic now accounts for more than half of the total internet traffic, it’s become more significant.

Domain name registration & web hosting

Spend some time when coming up with your domain name. Your domain name should reflect your products or services so that your customers can easily find your business through a search engine.

You can register a domain with ‘.au’ extension to ensure your customers know you are an Australian business. Learn how to register your domain name.

To get your domain name on the internet, you have to find a web hosting company. Most internet service providers offer web hosting services and provide you with multiple email addresses.

Web hosting fees for web hosting depend on how many visits you get and how large your website is.

Content & search engine optimisation (SEO)

Always provide visitors with relevant and fresh content (products & services information and blogs), as user experience should be taken into account. This is where search engine optimisation (SEO) comes in. In digital marketing, SEO is a strategy and best practice to help increase the visibility of a website on the search engine results page (SERP).

Anyone who uses a search engine, such as Google, utilises it to search for something. The search engine produces relevant information on the results page in response to a query — when you type in a keyword.

You’d want your website to show up on top of the first page of the results page.

See example below, using ‘small business loans Australia’ as the keywords.

SEO tools

Google supports the digital marketing practices that come out whenever they update their algorithm. So, they provide useful data, such as average monthly search for any keyword, which can be implemented on your website. Use these keywords to create content about your products and services.

To review and monitor your digital marketing efforts, Google also has tools for keyword research and tracking web traffic.

One of these tools is Google My Business. It’s a functional tool for local businesses with a local customer base. This is a great way to have your business appear near the top of that search when people in the local area search for the product or service you provide.

Your business automatically gains credibility and people will be more willing to trust you when they see your profile and accompanying good reviews at or near the top of the list.

Note: You’ll rank higher than competition if you observe proper SEO and abide by search engine guidelines and don’t do black hat SEO.

Small business loans in Australia

Cigno Business Solutions offers small business loans, which cater mostly to small businesses, with an online application process that’s as simple as possible.

CBS offers a flexible range of loans up to $10,000.

In order to complete the application, you’ll just need to have:

• a registered ABN
• a 90-day bank statement

Start the application process here!