There’s a common misconception that a local business simply relies on word of mouth and window shopping. Having a snazzy and effective website is a tool that any business needs, regardless if you are a brick-and-mortar store, or obviously an ecommerce website. A website is the storefront of an ecommerce site, but it can be a powerful sales tool for even the local mom and pop shops as well. In order to effectively compete as a business, especially in retail, it helps to use every weapon in your arsenal. In fact, there is a growing sentiment of everyday people that want to patronize local establishments rather than the larger faceless corporations. We even see companies like American Express getting into the mix by having a “Shop Local” day each and every year. Regardless of the desire to shop locally, if others don’t know you’re there and what you sell then chances are you’re dead in the water.
Now let’s assume your specialty is selling patio furniture, or perhaps you’re a local baker opening up a new bakery in town. Odds are that website creation isn’t your wheelhouse of expertise. This is when it pays to use tools available that make the job that much easier. After all, you want to focus on the core of your business, not all the additional items that can make running a business unbearable and time consuming. This is where a company like Wix comes in handy! If you want to create a blog or a website, then look no further. Often times it’s the actual creation of the website that holds people off from making the leap. Wix has an easy, informative, and intuitive tool for streamlining the entire process. You simply pick out your desire template, or theme, of your website and then follow the step-by-step instructions from there.
Another great feature of Wix is that they offer all of the blog maintenance and editing tools that you will need to keep your site current. Consider that they have a handy dandy editor tool, which is what you use for creating, editing, and scheduling fresh new content. In addition, they provide a plethora of social and media tools for marketing your site and making it look pretty. These days you can’t market enough. It used to be that Facebook was enough of a promotional tool for getting your site out there. However, millennials are a visual generation. This is why you need access to Instagram, Pinterest, and even YouTube as a means of reaching your full audience. Along with these tools they also provide helpful SEO tools as well, which are extremely important if you hope to reach targeted users via the major search engines.
SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization. While I’m sure you have heard this term before you may not have understood it fully. This is the ability of a specific key word, or set of words, to rank on a specific position within a specific page on Google, Yahoo, or Bing. Obviously Google is the king of all internet searches, but it’s still important to pull traffic from all engines possible. You need to be able to create useful and informative content on your website that also ranks well regarding search engine optimization, and specifically the keywords and content you are attempting to rank for. This involves relevant topics, quality organic backlinks, and promoting your posts in any and all ways possible. As I said above, social media is a powerful tool for marketing your site. Even those local businesses that subscribe to the theory of needing a website are often clueless when it comes to SEO work. Hiring out this process can be costly, which is why Wix provides a useful and affordable service with their SEO tools. But make no mistake, being inactive with SEO can hurt even the local mom and pop stores. It’s important that your site be included in local city and county directories. Further more, you might be located in the center of your hometown but you find yourself selling to a lot of people out of state, or perhaps even out of the country.
Brick-and-mortar stores have even been bitten by the globalization bug. These days you need every customer you can get to survive and thrive. You might sell to John Doe down the street from your house, or an international customer half way across the world who happened upon your site after typing his search into Google. For sales of this type you will need to make sure you are prepared to accept all forms of payment and can accommodate fast and reliable shipping. These are all functions and features that can be built into any website you create with Wix and their wonderful tools.
