2020 - Wow. Here we are, in a decade we couldn’t have imagined back in high school but, thanks to television, had visions of flying cars, robots, and time travel in a DeLoreon. We’ve sort of gotten 2 out of 3 with self-driving cars and Roomba vacuum cleaners (wish I had invented that one). I won’t be holding my breath on the time travel, despite social media’s efforts to remind me what I did last summer. And now, let’s travel back to the topic at hand which is improving your small business website in 2020.
​

I’ve had the luxury of working with scores of varying types of business over the years. I’ve helped countless small psychotherapy practices, chiropractors, small furniture stores, bed and breakfast inns and many nonprofit organizations. There are some things that cross all lines of business, so here’s my attempt to  cover most everyone with a few quick recommendations to help you improve your small business website in 2020.


1. Double check all those things you should’ve done in 2019 such as:

• Make sure your website’s address or url begins with https and not http. I’ve talked to several small business owners who thought their website was secured with an SSL certificate only to learn that it was never enabled. Without a secure website, Google has probably lowered your search engine ranking and lots of visitors may have arrived on your site only to be greeting with a scary security warning.
• Take a look at your website on your cell phone and your tablet device and make sure it looks decent. Your website should be responsive which means it should respond to the size of any screen. Another way to check your website’s responsive design is to simply shrink the size of your browser on any computer and watch as your site adjusts accordingly. If you shrink the size of your browser and your site doesn’t adjust the look & feel, then you do not have a responsive site. This is also problematic when it comes to your search engine rankings.

​2. ADA accessibility is becoming increasingly important for websites. There are a variety of standards for judging websites but if you’re a small business, you could simply add a widget or plugin to your site (for free) and that will help you become compliant on a basic level. Take a look in the lower right hand corner of my website, debbielamb.com and you’ll see a free tool called UserWay that is easy to add to sites and also provides a free accessibility statement template you can add to your site. You may not realize your website could give some people seizures do to your creative colors or animations and this app could seriously help those with disabilities. To check your website’s web accessibility, you can use webaccessibility.com, a free and easy tool that will even give your website a score and show you where you can improve.

If you've ever had to edit a website in Wordpress then you'll understand what I know: Wordpress sucks.

Harsh words, I realize (sorry Wordpress, it's me, not you).

Here's the thing they don't tell you - it's clunky. And time-consuming. And NOT intuitive (don't believe anyone who tells you it's easy - because it's not). That said, I do recommend Wordpress for a small handful of clients. But you're probably not one of them.

Wordpress is loved by many. Which many? The many Coders out there, that's who. Honestly, unless you write HTML or CSS code and/or enjoy spending lots of time on computers, stay away from Wordpress.

I have created scores of websites for small business owners and individual health practitioners and the reason I often recommend web platforms like Weebly, Squarespace or Wix is because they are EASY. Many of my clients want their sites built for them but would like to be able to make simple updates on their own or train their staff to manage updates moving forward. Wordpress will take double or triple the time for folks to learn their platform and update their website. They're just not worth the time. And they might save you fifty or a hundred bucks a year if you go with their free version (which I don't recommend usually), but you'll lose that money in the time it will take to work on your site.

Your small business website might start having issues in 2018 if your domain doesn't begin with https:. The reason is that Google has begun lowering the ranking of sites without it. Since Google gets 70-80% of all searches in the U.S., this is important.

Years ago, you only needed an SSL certificate (which will convert your site from HTTP to HTTPS) if you were selling something on your site. But now, there are concerns that any website with a form (contact or email signups for example) could be hacked and therefore, require more security. 

How do you know if your site has SSL security or not?
Open your website up in your browser - Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc. - and look for an exclamation point or error message near your website domain name. The image to the right here shows what it will look like in Chrome if your site has an http: address. 

How do you fix this HTTPS thing?
Many web hosting platforms like Weebly or Wix allow you to simply enable SSL security for free with any paid hosting plan. Once enabled, all you have to do is publish your site.

The next thing to do is change your settings in Google Analytics (there's a simple drop down menu for this change) and set up  a new site listing in Google Search Console (no, sadly you can't just switch the old one like with Analytics).

If you use Wordpress or another web host you may have to purchase an SSL certificate from your domain registrar (i.e. Godaddy or Network Solutions).

How urgent is this SSL stuff?
Not as urgent as making sure your domain is renewed each year but I'd recommend that no small business end 2018 without having fixed this.

Interested in getting help with updating the SSL on your site?
Why contact Lamb Consulting of course.

Interested in doing it yourself?
Here's a good tutorial on Google for you.