6 Small Business Trends to Be Aware of in 2024

It’s no secret that owning a successful small business is challenging. With only half of all small businesses still operational after their fifth year in business (as of 2023), it’s clear that entrepreneurs must find creative ways to keep up with the ever-evolving business landscape. 

Keeping up with this change in the new year will require businesses to leverage different aspects of their digital identities to stand out amongst competitors and connect with customers authentically. 

As an entrepreneur, exploring some of the ongoing and upcoming business trends for 2024 can equip you with the tools you need to cultivate sustainable success. 

How are small business trends evolving?

Business trends as a whole are moving more toward both automation and personalization. Simply put, companies are looking for ways to reduce overhead costs through tech automation while still crafting authentic connections with their customer bases. 

Leveraging digital tools and building out digital brands is a straightforward way to capitalize on both of these trending priorities.

Small businesses often have to go above and beyond to remain competitive with larger corporations. As a result, innovative small business owners are constantly looking for developing trends to keep them relevant to their target audiences. 

Small business trends in 2024 are expected to build up and reinvent the digital transformations that have occurred in previous years, continuing with ongoing digital trends like investing in social media and introducing new technologies like generative AI. 

6 key small business trends to emphasize in 2024

Solidify your company’s place in your industry in the upcoming year by discovering ways to apply small business trends to your overall business strategy:

1. Leveraging organic traffic

The idea of using organic traffic to drive attention to your site and its products isn’t anything new. However, 2024 is likely to introduce a renewed focus on organic traffic as more companies aim to harness the power of content marketing. 

Having a quality website with searchable, valuable content is one of the core ways small businesses can rank in relevant search results and establish expertise in their fields. Here’s how: 

• Conduct thorough keyword research to learn about the types of terms that your target customers are searching for.

• Then, incorporate these keywords throughout your site in a natural, educational way (for instance, leveraging them in blog posts and product descriptions). 

In fact, every aspect of a site can contribute to your digital presence, from the products or service content you feature to the domain name you choose. To that end, consider the following tactics: 

• Featuring user-generated content on your site
• Posting curated blogs
• Adding powerful, keyword-based copy to your e-commerce offerings 

By leveraging each element of your site with some of these tips, you can attract natural traffic through shares and search engine clicks. 

2. Exploring alternative domain extensions

Your website’s domain name is a portal to your digital brand and identity. In fact, modern businesses have more agency than ever when it comes to their domain names. This is due to the rising popularity of new top-level domains (TLDs), also known as descriptive domain extensions. 

While classic domain names like .com can still be powerful business assets, more and more companies are now exploring nTLDs that reflect their products, services, and industries, such as:

• .beauty
• .ai
• .design
• .agency
• .tech

Regardless of the extension you choose, remember that quality domain names are often short, memorable, catchy, and representative of the business in some way. For instance, you might represent your business through: 

• A brandable domain name that’s a direct match for the company name

• A descriptive domain name that uses keywords to signal the type of content visitors can expect on the site

Descriptive domain extensions give small businesses more opportunities to claim domain names that accurately represent their brand while following best domain selection practices.  

You can also secure multiple domain names with different extensions to strengthen your digital identity across multiple service sectors. TLDs enable you to distinguish different offerings from one another and improve your overall site taxonomy. 

For instance, one single brand may secure the same domain name with .store, .news, and .info to house its e-commerce store, press releases, and information about its products and partnerships, respectively.  Discover various domain name options with Name.com’s Domain Name Checker to secure the perfect domain name and create a lasting online presence.

3. Developing cross-platform identities

As more social platforms approach the mainstream, businesses of all sizes have begun looking for convenient ways to consolidate their content from various sites. In 2024, having a strong digital identity transcending single platforms will become key to building community around your brand and driving conversions. 

In other words, by connecting each of your company’s social and web channels to one another, you make it easier to capture interest and attention from potential customers on various platforms. 

One of the key strategies for cultivating a cohesive online presence as a small business involves designing a central site that houses your content, whether that’s a fully-fledged website or a more basic link-in-bio landing page that features links to all of your different social media pages.

Being able to promote all of your content with one single link makes it easier for your target customers to navigate from one page to another. It also gives you the opportunity to promote consistency across your web content while engaging with customers in a wider variety of web niches. Consider Wix Website Builder to combine your domain name with the leading online business platform and create a centralized website in minutes. 

To that end, consider securing a .bio or .link domain to use as your digital landing center to promote your entrepreneurial brand. 

4. Personalizing customer interactions

Customers increasingly expect attentive, personalized experiences from the brands they love. They also hold small businesses to a higher customer service standard, with 71% of consumers indicating that they expect better support from small companies compared to their enterprise-level counterparts. 

Establishing systems that prioritize custom consumer experiences can help entrepreneurs meet this expectation while building scalable infrastructure accommodating future growth.

Providing individualized customer experiences often begins with thoughtful data collection. When building your site and social media pages, create ways to incentivize customers to share their data and let you know more about their wants, needs, and pain points. Allowing customers to opt-in to data collection cultivates trust with your audience, upholds compliance with privacy expectations, and gives you access to both the behaviors and thought processes of your customers. 

In turn, you can become empowered to customize your offerings and build your digital brand to resonate with core customer segments.

5. Tapping into alternative funding

You can expect modern startups and small businesses to continue bootstrapping themselves toward success in 2024. In fact, instead of exclusively approaching banks for traditional business loans, small business owners are continuing to find alternative funding options through: 

• Crowdfunding
• Fundraising
• Reaching out to private investors

Entrepreneurs who may not have the resources or connections to secure a classic loan can instead rely on innovative ideas and community support to fund new initiatives.

However, to effectively leverage alternate funding techniques like crowdfunding, small businesses must be able to effortlessly communicate their company values, practices, and projects to potential backers and investors. A professional domain name and site can legitimize your business’s presence in its industry and offer visitors one convenient way to research your investment opportunities. 

Additionally, consider housing your fundraising efforts within your website on their own page or refer your social media audience to a third-party crowdfunding page through a link-in-bio page. Consider creating a dedicated fundraising site with a .giving or .fund extension to target investors while preserving branding on your main site, shop, or social pages.

6. Using generative AI to automate

In 2023, the world saw the rapid rise of ChatGPT, AI art tools, and other generative artificial intelligence programs. In 2024, small businesses will likely find novel applications for this ever-evolving trend. 

In fact, by thoughtfully incorporating AI into your business processes, you’ll likely: 

• Become more efficient
• Identify bottlenecks
• Reduce costs associated with tedious manual tasks

Overall, generative AI can help small businesses become more lean and agile and encourage them to invest their resources into rapid, sustainable expansion. 

Creating a competitive digital presence

Many of the top trends of 2024 circle back to the concept of building a strong digital presence. Focusing on your brand and digital assets as a small business sets you up for future growth and enables you to effectively compete with other companies in your sector. 

To accomplish these goals, consider leveraging a domain name that accurately represents your business identity, then start building and collecting digital assets that you can house under that web address. 

Claim and strengthen your small business’s digital identity with Name.com

Position yourself to capitalize on the top trends of 2024 by reserving a powerful domain name with Name.com. You can start your journey with the Name.com domain name search tool to find options that align with your business’s identity, values, and goals. Then, build a site and connect it to your domain name all within the Name.com platform. 

With this basic foundation, you’ll have the tools you need to create a competitive online presence that keeps you at the cutting edge of your field in 2024 and beyond.

Source:
Cin7. 51 staggering small business statistics to know in 2023. https://www.cin7.com/blog/small-business-statistics/