About the Author
There are around 8000 Walsall small businesses, all offering various services to the local community. These entrepreneurs play a vital role in the local economy, contributing skills such as freelancing, Web Design, Photography, Accounting and Handyman services.
Table of Contents
Walsall is home to a sizable population of 287,000 people, creating the ideal conditions for both niche and competitive business conditions to succeed. Having a much lower population than neighbouring Birmingham (1.2 Million), it can be a blessing for local businesses and freelancers to be able to focus on growing strong community connections and developing a local expertise specific to Walsall.
There are many business in the uk still
without a website (49%), while Walsall has a population of around 8,000 registered businesses – taking into account the national average that’s around 4,000 Walsall businesses operating without a website. That’s a lot of business owners missing out on their customers being able to find them in a google search.
The need to “go big” when choosing your new business venture isn’t always the right move. It’s always best to check what’s available on your local doorstep first. You can always expand business as you grow!
Those operating as small businesses tend to prefer using social media to acquire clients. The rise of social media has given way to an extraordinary burst in people all over the UK creating their own business, which is great to hear. From hairdressing, handyman services, to video editing, much work is now attainable from the internet and using social media to drive your ‘sole trader’ business forward.
One strength of small business in Walsall, is many have a ‘google my business profile’. For those that don’t know, this is the online business card that pops up with a map when people search for you business or similar services.
Just from a quick check using google, we found that a couple of Walsall plumbers have a great GMB profile, decent reviews but have no website to take their traffic to after they’re now interested in their services.
Adding a website will have a near-instant impact and become a small businesses key advantage as they send the signals of their Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-A-T) throughout the local Walsall area and across the google search engine.
Google places great emphasis on these factors when determining the quality and relevance of a website, particularly in the realm of local search. So, if you already have an established brand, Google will recognise this very quickly.
You can connect your newly created website to your current GMB account, shown in the above photo.
Make sure when getting your website you choose a web designer with a focus on marketing. This will mean they know how important the homepage is in drawing in visitors and getting them to take action towards booking or buying from you.
When creating a webpage, it’s much more than just ‘visuals’ as Nandana Varma from the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy found in a 2021 Web Design Study “Make sure to always keep the consumer in mind when creating digital content”. The content must read well and guarantee that the information will be properly absorbed by the customer, or they will leave within seconds of being on your website.
Walsall’s large community presents the ability to build goodwill and visibility with ease. This can be achieved by small business owners by them supporting community initiatives (sponsoring) and participating in local events. This also provides the ability to capitalise on positive word-of-mouth recommendations from clients and develop solid connections around the area.
In Walsall this could mean having your story picked up in the express and star and letting the leads come to you. As Rucker and Uzzi’s (Northwestern University) research highlights having a growing word of mouth presence can “start to shape consumer behaviour in regards to their brand”, as social media influencers and news publications pick up on their brand, it can snowball very easily in the current 2024 internet environment, with virality being front and centre to the success of many small businesses.
Walsall council advocates that small businesses take the opportunity to engage with their parks programme both to lessen their environmental impact and in turn get positive publicity through Walsall Council’s media outlets. Approaching this from a sole trader, or small business perspective, this could lead to providing long-term goodwill and netting your local business a key advantage over the competitors in your area.
We created this blog to show local Walsall sole traders and entrepreneurs some of the marketing tactics employed by other local businesses and build a sense of community among them. With only around half of sole traders having a website in 2024, we want to bring an understanding to the topic, with our wider goal being to support and facilitate each other’s success in the local Walsall business community.
Venetix Web provides premium quality, end to end web design with an emphasis on staying true your brand.
