When building a business from scratch, visual online promotion is one of the key prerequisites for becoming a recognized business.
New business owners need to implement proper strategies to increase their lead generation from day one.
They can do that more efficiently using various visual features. However, these elements need to be properly optimized so that they’re equally adapted to users and search engines.
In this article, you can find more about preparing and posting visuals to successfully promote your business on the Internet.
Table of Contents
Purposeful and authentic images
Adequate images are convenient way of presenting your business and building your online brand.
But what does the word adequate mean here?
For starters, your images need to relate to the content they’re incorporated into. Downloading photos from stock websites and scattering them randomly around your SMB website won’t bring the desired results.
The photos you want to upload to your SMB website need to send add to the surrounding content.
For instance, if you’re writing a guide on how to install ecommerce solutions, enrich this article with screenshots and illustrations that will help users completely understand the process.
On the other hand, your homepage needs to send a clear message on the purpose and vision of your business. This is where an authentic image will perfectly suit to show the world why to choose.
Generally speaking, you need to optimize every photo you want to use on your SMB website. When you adapt its size, it won’t slow down the load time.
Every photo needs to have a name – written in small letters, with a hyphen between every word – and an alt tag, as well. It needs to describe what elements the image consists for so that visually impaired users can understand what is in the image (text-to-speech option).
Tutorials, explainer videos, news
This is the age of motion pictures, especially in digital marketing.
On the one hand, there are Internet users, who shoot and post an incredible amount of videos daily.
On the other hand, there are business owners, who create various motion pictures to promote their business features.
From tutorials and explainer videos to news and promotional videos, there’s a variety of options to communicate your activities in an efficient and attractive way.
Still, every video you make needs to pass the optimization process.
First and foremost, every video needs to have a proper title. If possible, the main keywords should be included in that title. If not, add them to the video description.
Also, you should publish business videos with a transcript to cover as wide an audience as possible. Learn more about other SEO-features for proper video optimization, as well.
Only short visual sections, such as explainer or promotional videos, should be posted directly to your SMB website.
Longer videos should be posted to YouTube or any other video platform and then embedded to you website.
When it comes to video describing the current affairs in your niche, you can go with visual presentations or slideshows and narration in the background. Depending on your niche, you may want to publish such videos a few times a month.
Website layout and navigation
Different businesses have different demands for their website. Depending on your desires and plans, your website layout and navigation can be differently organized to let you communicate the key features for your business.
As the web experts from a web design company in Houston describe it, you can put various elements of your website in the spotlight. For instance, small businesses offering various online services will probably want to highlight what these services are and how much they cost. This information will therefore be provided in the most visible part of the homepage.
Some other businesses won’t put the pricing first. For example, if your business connects other companies, you might not want to be too aggressive with the prices. You should first show why those companies should choose you to improve their business experience. Textual and visual storytelling, together with appropriate videos and images, will be a better path for such a business. You’ll organize your website In line with such priorities.
Moreover, SMB-owners need to take good care of visual features on their landing pages and checkout sections. Photos, illustrations, and screenshots are here only to enrich the key information that sells products or services on such pages. So, don’t overdo with those features and keep your clients focused.
Mobile-friendly options
About 50% of web traffic belongs to mobiles today.
If you know that every second visitor uses their mobile to access your website, you need to act accordingly.
We’ve already mentioned the importance of optimizing photos and videos, as well as their titles and names to search engines. But this is only the beginning.
You need to think about building a mobile version of your desktop website. If your analytics reports show that many mobile users come to your website and quickly bounce back, go for a mobile version as soon as possible. Mobile versions have a different layout and some features that exist on the desktop website aren’t included in its mobile counterpart.
Moreover, SMBs that sell products and services should launch a mobile app, as well. Recurring visitors and customers will have a better user experience and they’ll be able to complete their activities with your business more effectively.
If you want your SMB website to become a recognizable and successful online business, you need to invest time and energy in its visual features. So, combine relevant stock images and your authentic, in-house photos to tell the visual story of your business. Add videos to your marketing agenda, both those produced on your own and some existing ones, as well.
Adapt the layout and organization of your website to your business goals, to stress out the money-making-elements and leave the additional features in the background.
Finally, remember that this is the world of mobiles and adapt both your website and all its visuals to mobile audiences.
