Small Business WordPress Websites

Small businesses have unique needs when it comes to their websites. The most obvious of these needs are performance in the form of sales or conversions, affordability, and scalability. WordPress is perfectly suited to fill these needs.

Small Business Sales / Conversions with WordPress

Unless other accommodations are being made, a website development plan which does not include a search engine optimization and conversion strategy is inherently flawed. Every website should have goals: create sales, deliver lead form submissions, newsletter signups, or simply page views. Establishing a list of goals allows for proper micro- and macro-analytic tracking which will allow conversion rate optimization to be applied.

 Conversion rate optimization is the process of reviewing conversion analytic data in order to ascertain specific reasons behind a successful, or unsuccessful, conversion strategy. 

Analytic tracking is very important and allows for a small business to maximize their conversion rates. This leads to business growth. But tracking the information that needs to be tracked isn’t always easy. This is where WordPress comes in. WordPress’ has a plethora of plugins which extend its base functionality. Not surprisingly there are numerous plugins which make the process of installing analytic tracking data relatively simple.

Affordable Small Business Website Design

Small businesses come in all shapes, sizes, and industries. Although small businesses are comprised of a diverse group with wildly varying needs, WordPress is the answer for the job. WordPress is open source, which means it is free to own and use. Many WordPress website owners manage their website’s themselves while relying on a developer or a designer to take care of specific as-needed tasks. Most small business WordPress websites start at around $500, depending on whom you decide to work with and the complexity of your needs.

WordPress has an active community of development professionals whom produce high-quality WordPress plugins which fill a range of needs. Some are free, while others are premium and require a one-time fee or a yearly / monthly fee. Typically these plugins are sold with support packages as well. This wealth of advanced functionality means that your website can benefit for free, or by simply paying a licensing fee. This allows a WordPress website owner to avoid the high costs of custom development.

What about support and upkeep? As mentioned above, quite a few WordPress website owners manage their website’s themselves. Keeping them up to date is not as difficult as some developer would have you believe. That being said, Bellingham WP offers hosting and website management options which should not be overlooked as a solution.

What if I end up unhappy with the website’s design and layout? Don’t fret. WordPress uses WordPress Themes to control the design, layout, and display of the website’s content. What does this mean? It means that the website can stay in place while a new skin is applied on a development server. Otherwise, the current WordPress theme can be modified in any number of ways to meet your liking. Once approved, the new WordPress theme can be seamlessly applied to your live website, creating a situation of minimal downtime. This can also be performed either after-hours or at other non-peak times so as to not interfere with your customers browsing experience.

WordPress Scalability

WordPress is a perfect website solution for small businesses, but not to the exclusion of large businesses. WordPress easily scales to the enterprise level. This means that your WordPress website can grow with your business. Did your website start as a simple lead generation machine, but now you want to sell products? No problem, we can add eCommerce functionality on the fly. What about adding a blog? The blogging functionality is inherent to WordPress and simply needs to be enabled and implemented.

Check out the WordPress Showcase to view some of the larger businesses and organizations which make use of WordPress.

Conclusions

WordPress is a great option for small business websites because it’s easy to use, affordable, and scalable. Add to this the fact that it represents a great starting point for search engine optimization and conversion rate optimization.

Get in touch if you have questions.

About Rick D'Haene

Rick D'Haene is a web developer, specializing in WordPress, with a degree in graphic and website design. Rick has extensive knowledge of internet marketing and organic search engine optimization (SEO). He and his lovely wife Melissa reside in Bellingham, Washington, and have a few fun pets to keep them company.

Find me here: Twitter /Facebook /Google+ /

2 comments

  • Darren BrysonReply

    I’m a plumber and i need a place for people to find me. Can you set it up for people to schedule appointments and pay online? What would that cost?

    • Rick D'HaeneReply

      Hi Darren,
      I can definitely help you out. We can set your website up to allow visitors to schedule appointments for multiple different services and pay for them via your merchant account or PayPal. We can also integrate the appointment scheduling into a Google Calendar which you and your employees can utilize while in the field.

      The cost will be dependent on several factors which are still to be determined. I will contact you by email to setup a time to discuss your needs either in person or over the phone.

      Thank you Darren!
      – Rick

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