Muscle Shoals has a name known across the country, and visitors come for the music history. While they are here, they spend money with businesses that have nothing to do with music: places to eat, places to stay, shops and services. Meanwhile the people who live in Muscle Shoals still need a plumber, a mechanic and somewhere to get lunch. A business here can serve both from one website, as long as it does not try to say everything to everybody at once.
Lead with what you do, not the city’s fame
Opening a Muscle Shoals website with the city’s history is tempting, and for most businesses it is a mistake. A local customer searching for a service wants the service, and a page that opens with the city’s fame makes them scroll past it. Name the service first and the city second: “Auto repair in Muscle Shoals and Colbert County”.
Give the visitor a section of their own
Visitors need different information from locals: where the business is, how to get there from where they are staying, whether they need to book, and what to expect when they arrive. That belongs in a short section further down the homepage, or on a page of its own, written for somebody who has never been to the area.
Be clear about where you are
Muscle Shoals is one of four Shoals cities, with Florence, Sheffield and Tuscumbia, and a visitor may not know where one ends and the next begins. Say plainly where the business is and which of the neighboring cities it serves. That helps the visitor plan, and it helps a search engine understand the area the business covers.
Keep both kinds of information current
Hours change, seasonal offers come and go, and visitor traffic has its busy weekends. A site that is checked and updated regularly stays useful to both kinds of customer. One that was set up once and left alone slowly becomes useful to neither.
JM Marketing builds, hosts and maintains websites for businesses in Muscle Shoals and across the Shoals. See website design in Muscle Shoals, or call Jeff McDaniel at 662-422-1809.