BaseKit Product Roadmap: What’s new and what’s next

Today, we know it’s crucial for small businesses to have a fast and high-ranking website to attract and retain their own customers. Research from Portent reveals that websites loading in just one second can achieve conversion rates three times higher than those that take five seconds.

Yet still there are small business customers that don’t understand the value of a well-optimised website to improve their own user experience, boost their search engine rankings, and increase their visibility and potential sales.

Engaging your small business customers in ways they can create the best chance of a high-performing online presence, is a great way to help keep them sticky and feel in control of the performance of their website.

Let’s explore three tactics partners can use to help their small business customers achieve faster, higher-ranking websites.

1.  Speed Optimisation

Website speed is fundamental to keeping users happy, boosting search engine rankings, and maintaining a successful online presence.

Since 93% of online experiences start with a search engine, achieving higher rankings is essential for small businesses to attract potential customers.

Here are some practical ways you can help your customers to improve and optimise site speed:

• Share tips on how to optimise imagesHigh-quality images are essential, but uncompressed ones can reduce your site’s speed. Optimise and resize your images to maintain their brilliance while boosting page load times.It’s recommended that full-screen images should be at least 2500 pixels wide, hero images 1280-2500 pixels wide, and blog images around 1200 pixels wide. Keep most image files under 500 KB and larger ones under 1 MB.
• Integrate and share the benefits of a CDNA Content Delivery Network (CDN) intelligently distributes a website’s static assets across a network of global servers, ensuring each site feels local to users, regardless of their geographic location.BaseKit has integrated with leading CDN ImageEngine to significantly enhance website performance and image energy efficiency for our partners and their customers.

  We’ve seen payload savings of 95% for partners who use this software, which equates to seven tonnes of carbon saved each month and a more sustainable digital footprint.Sharing this with customers is a great way to show them their website is saving energy without them lifting a finger. Learn more about how to integrate ImageEngine with BaseKit right here.

• Share tools that can help customers perform regular website auditsEncouraging customers to do regular website audits helps them to identify and address any speed, SEO, and user experience issues. Semrush is a great site audit tool that can help.

2.  SEO Strategies for Higher Rankings

Website speed is essential, but it’s just one piece of the SEO puzzle. Share these tactics to boost your customers’ website presence in search results:

• Create and update content regularlyConsistently creating and updating valuable content that addresses the concerns and interests of their target audience gives your customers a means to drive traffic to their website, and demonstrate to search engines that their site is a credible and valuable source of information.

  We’ve previously shared information to partners about video marketing and user-generated content – these are content types that your customers can also take advantage of.

• Optimise for Local SEOEnhancing local SEO is vital for small businesses that operate from a physical location. To boost visibility, ensure your customers know to keep their Google My Business profile listing is up to date, include location-specific keywords in their content, and actively encourage customer reviews.
• Build Quality BacklinksYour customers can enhance their website authority and credibility by acquiring backlinks from respected industry sites through guest posts, crafting highly shareable content, and actively participating in your local business community.
• Optimise On-Page ElementsBy including relevant keywords throughout their page titles, headers, and meta descriptions, customers can make simple changes to optimise their site for SEO. Make sure your customers know BaseKit has built-in SEO tools to help.

3.  User Experience Enhancements

By investing in user experience improvements, small businesses can transform their online business experience for their customers and ultimately help encourage returning visitors. Here’s some new BaseKit features you can share with your customers to help them do just that:

• Website preboarding previewsA new side-by-side preview on both desktop and mobile in the BaseKit platform that can be viewed during website onboarding to help customers view and tweak their website experience across devices.
• Display weight on product pagesCustomers can enhance their customer shopping experience by displaying valuable product weight details to better understand quantity and shipping options.
• Improved store checkout flowWhen your customers’ website users enter their details to make a Store purchase, they can now view and choose their preferred shipping method on the shipping page, making the checkout process simpler and faster.
• Improved site navigationSimplifying website navigation helps users find information quickly and efficiently. BaseKit users can now hide individual pages and entire folders from their website navigation.
• SSL certificate implementationSecuring user data and privacy with an SSL certificate enhances a website’s credibility and improves its search engine rankings. This will result in faster load speeds, a safer browsing experience, and user trust.

  Every paid BaseKit website subscription comes with an SSL certificate included – it’s worth reminding customers about this, and its benefits, to help make them feel comfortable that their website and their users are safe.

A fast, high-ranking website is a powerful growth driver for small businesses. By prioritising speed enhancements, robust SEO tactics, and superior user experience, businesses can dramatically boost their online visibility and competitive edge, and keep them sticky.

Sharing these tactics together or separately, for example, via vlogs or blogs, is a great way to help your customers feel supported and keep them happy and engaged so they can make the most of their online business presence.

Remember that BaseKit releases product updates every two weeks, which are shared in our BaseKit Product Updates social newsletter on LinkedIn.

Customer-facing enhanced updates are featured, now with helpful white label guides to help you share them with your customers. Linking information about new and existing features in your blogs is also a great way to drive engagement in the Platform.

We’re on a mission for tech democracy for small businesses

If you’re an existing BaseKit partner and need further support and information about any of the tips and features mentioned in this article, or you are interested in integrating ImageEngine, please contact your account manager.

Not already a partner? Get in touch to try out our software for yourself and discuss what a BaseKit partnership could look like for your company.