Most small businesses in Africa are online now. A Facebook page, a WhatsApp catalogue, maybe a website someone built a few years ago. But being online and working online are two different things.
Here are five checks you can run in ten minutes. No budget needed, no developer needed.
1. Can a stranger tell what you sell in ten seconds?
Open your page like a customer who has never heard of you. If they cannot see what you sell, where you are, and how to pay within ten seconds, you are losing them. Put the offer at the top, not buried under photos of the team.
2. Does it load on a cheap phone on a weak network?
Most of your customers are on a phone, often on mobile data. Open your page on 3G, not office wifi. If it takes more than a few seconds, half your visitors are gone before they see anything.
3. Can a customer reach you without installing anything?
A click-to-call number and a WhatsApp link cost nothing and remove every step between a customer and you. If they must download an app or remember an email address, you will lose some of them.
4. Do you own your address, or are you renting it?
A Facebook page is rented attention. The platform can change the reach, the rules, or the price whenever it likes. Your own domain is an asset you keep. A simple one-page site plus a WhatsApp link is often enough. It does not need to be big. It needs to be yours.
5. Do you know which ad brought the sale?
If you pay for ads, point them at one link you can track. Otherwise you are guessing which money worked and which was wasted. One tracked link answers it.
What to do next
Pick the worst of the five and fix that one this week. Most of these fixes cost nothing but an afternoon.
If you run a small shop and want to send a clean quote or invoice, our free SharpDoc tool does it on your phone, no sign-up.
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