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A guide to starting a Veteran-Owned Business using expert website development strategies.
As a veteran-owned business, we understand how difficult it is making the leap from service to civvy life. Then to start your own business adds a whole new challenge. From Andy’s (Jolly Good Web’s founder and CEO) own experience, starting a company has been an emotional whirlwind of learning pressures, excitement, difficulties and fulfilment.
We know there are a hundred-and-one things to gain an understanding for a veteran startup, so we want to help lighten the load with our tips for your website development strategy.
Have a read of our straight talking advice, the support we can provide to Veterans and our Business Bootstrap offer.
1. Prior to starting your Website's design and development
Before diving into your web design and development, it is crucial to first solidify some elements of your business plan to ensure your website delivers. Take a look at your brand, what is the look and feel and how do you want this to be portrayed through your website? In this process you can consider styling elements, such as a website that is clean-cut, to the point and simplistic.
Equally, you may want your website to be more bespoke, displaying personality and quirky features. This ties into your brand voice, who are you and who is your business? For example we pride ourselves on our straight-talking communication style, allowing our clients to depend on us for honest and knowledge based collaborations. Know your Unique Selling Point (USP)! Whether your business’ USP is a special product feature, being a veteran-owned start-up or you, make sure this is highlighted throughout the website. Having a clear vision of your USP will support your website developers and designers in creating a site that sells your vision.
Remember, potential customers won’t know what is special about your business unless you show them. Arguably the most important consideration before developing your website is defining the purpose of your new website. What is it you would like your website to achieve and do you have an initial goal in mind? For example, as a veteran startup sales consultancy, your initial goal may be to encourage the circulation and use of your sales strategy videos to gain awareness of your brand and service.
ith this in mind, we can design your website to centre around this goal, driving traffic towards different videos based on the user search intent. Understanding these requirements in detail prior to development will help lay a foundation for a successful website.
2. During Website Design & Development
Deciding which Web Design and Development agency to work with can be tough, but having a list of your necessary requirements can help narrow down your list. This way you can be certain the agency you chose has the necessary skills to successfully develop your website and the final product will be able to perform the basic functions needed.
With your audience in mind, designing the layout of your website prior to development will help to create a positive User Experience (UX) that will guide visitors towards desired actions. At Jolly Good Web, we do this by first creating a wireframe of the site, allowing us to examine how each section of the website can be linked together to enhance engagement and increase conversions. When building your website, consideration of how you will attract visitors and grow site traffic should be included in your overall marketing strategy. For this you have two options, organic or paid growth.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is one of the best ways to increase website traffic, however SEO work should form part of your long term strategy as it doesn’t generate visitors overnight. The main area you want your web developers to focus on for your new website is Technical SEO, which includes mobile friendliness, site load time, site structure and crawl error identification.
The other area of SEO to focus on from the beginning is Content SEO, which involves optimising elements of your site's content to attract the right audience. Base your research around key words, meta data descriptions, image SEO, blogging and FAQs. Social media can be an excellent way to drive traffic to your website. One of the best ways to do this is by understanding your audience and providing them with something they may want or need. This doesn’t just have to be in the form of a product or service, but instead can provide answers to questions, useful articles or tools. Be sure to give your social content personality, helping to grow your brand image and voice.
Increasing traffic at a faster rate can be achieved through paid ads. These come in many different forms such as Google Search Ads, Facebook Ads, Sponsored Product Ads, Display Ads and Shopping Ads. The price of these vary depending on the competition within your sector for the exposure. Spending money on paid advertising before your website can be waste and can negatively impact future growth. Ads will channel potential customers to your incomplete website, where they will likely have a poor user experience, creating a negative brand impression - make sure to complete your website first!
3. After Website Development
Websites require constant evolution and updating to remain competitive and functioning correctly. A common mistake is to launch a website and think that is the job done.
Continuing to improve your website based on UX will help raise your ranking on search engines and provide a better experience to potential customers, making them more likely to return and convert.
Using Google Analytics and Google Search Console can provide you with a greater understanding of how your website is being used, where users are spending the most time and where the bounce rates are high. This insight can support you in establishing useful content that attracts, and identifies problem areas.
At Jolly Good Web we understand the importance of continued website development and support, priding ourselves in our website development support packages for Veterans and new business owners.
Conclusion
In this digital era, having a website is necessary to build brand credibility, grow awareness and convert potential customers, so don’t go without. We can help build the right website for your business, supporting you with every stage of development. We create bespoke packages depending on your requirements, time constraints and budget.
Are you a Veteran? If so, make sure to ask us about the Veteran Business Bootstrap offer.