At SiteBites we like to think we’re optimists. Glass-half-full (cheers, don’t mind if I do), sunnyside-up kind of people. So while the world keeps taking sucker punches from the pandemic, we’re focusing on how you can make your website work a bit harder for you now you need it most.

The new economy’s painful for everyone, and on-off lockdowns seem with us for the foreseeable. (Good to know the Government has A PLAN.) So here are three ways your website can help pump up your business.

1. Cut down on the boring admin … to leave more time for making money

Integration is the big idea here: automatically connecting your website to your other cool software. Like when a customer goes online to book an appointment with you and it pops right into your calendar. Or potential new talent fills out a job application form on your website and the data goes straight into your recruitment system. Or you get a promising enquiry from your contact page and their data whizzes right into your marketing database. Yes, it’s goodbye copy & paste. (And we doubt anyone wakes up in the morning with a spring in their step because they’re going to be scheduling bookings all day anyway.)

And are you confidently hosting online meetings and events (can you even remember when real people used to be a feature of your working day)? Not just the likes of Zoom and Teams, but filming and uploading socially distanced activities from a school assembly to a product demo.

2. Marketing to draw in those customers, wherever they are

If your business has been forced to temporarily close, your lovely storefront may be only the size of a laptop screen … iPad screen (other tablets are available) … or miniscule mobile screen. You can still bring your website to life with punchy content, pictures, blogs and homemade video. You’re telling your customers, “Woohoo we’re still here. Come back soon (when the science allows), we can’t wait to see you. PS: We’re jumping around like crazy because we’ve drunk all the coffee we’d normally offer you.”

You can also sign people up to email marketing from your contact forms, and add them to your CRM. You can draw in more Marketing Qualified Leads by offering web visitors useful e-books/how-to pdfs/voucher codes in exchange for their email address … and connecting these to your special offers and campaign landing pages. You can integrate your Instagram or Facebook feed into your website so your latest news runs engagingly alongside your content; and conversely set up easy sharing of your web content on social. It’s cross-fertilisation, baby, oh yeah.

Talking of fertiliser, have you read how we pulled on our garden wellies to raise cash for an amazing charity called Limbcare?

3. Communicate, communicate, communicate …

We don’t mean unnecessarily long blog posts… Talking to each other makes us human and keeps us sane. And, of course:

• because your customers need to know your adapted opening hours: there’s a quick Google fix to do this
• because you can use live chat to answer queries, personalise the online experience and provide all-important reassurance in these anxious times
• because pop-ups, banners and light boxes are brilliant for announcing that you’re still trading, safely
• because a post on Google My Business reels in attention to your website like those mackerel guys with the brimming buckets you see on the beach in summer
• and because you can make IMPACT by hosting videos showing customers how your PPE will keep them safe or providing tutorials you used to give in person.

Crucially, you can talk to your staff via simple password-protected or user-only pages in WordPress to share coronavirus Health & Safety policies, showcase morale-boosting good news and keep everyone in tune with what’s going on. Yes, a few of them are working under their duvets when Zoom’s turned off, but it’s polite to stay in touch.

Call today to see how we can get your website working harder.