How To Reinvent Your Business’ Digital Presence
A digital presence is defined simply by how your business appears on the internet. This includes any information customers find when they carry out an online search, such as your website and social media accounts.
If you’re an SME, then having a digital presence is crucial when it comes to attracting new customers and clients. Whether you are wanting to help the business seize new opportunities or make it more diverse and inclusive by improving user experience (UX), reinventing your business could be the best thing you ever do.
Increase Inclusivity
The internet has become a crucial part of our lives; we use it for everything from shopping to banking. However, not everyone has the same experience if they have some form of disability. Unfortunately, only 1% of one million websites meet accessibility requirements. By creating an accessible design, you are removing any obstacles that could prevent your visitors from having the same experience when using your website. The majority of finance websites are not outwardly accessible. Instead, information about their accessibility is only available through a click-through link towards the bottom of their homepage.
Most big-name companies design their websites as if they are the end-user. On the other hand, SMEs can dedicate the time and resources to create a website that offers the same experience for everyone. To appear inclusive, you can add an accessibility widget, but that is still adding in an extra obstacle for disabled people to go through. An alternative could be to make the website text larger, which will benefit some of those visitors to your site and create a more inclusive UX.
It’s not just websites that need to be more accessible, though. Banking companies are designing credit cards that are suitable for blind and partially sighted people. This highlights the fact that the finance industry is slowly becoming more inclusive for all customers.
Other ways that you can ensure your website is more inclusive include:
- Easy-to-understand language
- A lower colour contrast ratio
- Skip-to-main-content accessibility enhancement
- Support keyboard navigation
- Adding alt text to images
Improving Website User Experience
It takes new users a maximum of 15 seconds to decide if they like your website. Those few seconds must capture the user’s attention before they look elsewhere. By having a poorly-designed website, you’re harming your business, which is something to consider when you reinvent your digital presence. You can ensure this by using web templates that match your business requirements. Online services have a wide range of templates suitable for any sector, which is especially important as over 70% of people admit they judge a business's credibility based on their website.
By creating a website that is compact and convenient, you can make sure the UX is the best it can be and that it showcases the message you want visitors to take away. Rebranding can have an impact on the design of your brand, from the company logo to the colour palette. It can also affect the company's tone and make it more in line with its sector. This is why blue is a popular colour amongst finance websites as it offers your clients a sense of trust in you.
Other ways you can improve the website UX include:
- Create engaging content
- Use bullet points
- Choose a minimalist layout
- Provide information concisely
- Check your website speed
- Use SEO techniques to help people initially find your website
Finding The Underserved Market
Unlike larger businesses, SMEs can focus on a specific market while finding openings into unique opportunities, and the finance sector is one of the most innovative industries. The key to finding underserved opportunities is centred around innovation, such as identifying problems and coming up with profitable solutions.
Financial innovations that have already come about include online and mobile banking and cardless cash points. For those who are not comfortable using this technology yet, in-person branches are available to help. When they have the time and staff available to look for these openings for new solutions, SMEs can be at the forefront of change. A rebrand can demonstrate this and show that their business is all about helping find solutions to the toughest problems.
A benefit that comes with reinventing your digital presence is you can use it as an opportunity to reach out to people who are looking for solutions to their problems. This way, you can figure out the possible directions the financial industry is going to take.
Overview
Reinventing your digital presence not only shows potential clients that you are aware that nothing is set in stone – and can adapt to a constantly evolving society – but also how flexible you are to the changing needs of the products you have to offer. From using a different website template to making sure your content is inclusive to all, rebranding takes a lot of time and effort, but it will be worth it in the end, especially if you need to realign your business’ beliefs. Unlike larger businesses, SMEs can create their own niche in an otherwise large financial sector by innovating and becoming the change they want to see.
