Having a small business of your own is one of the best investments you can make. A small business has the potential to earn you lots of money and even grow into a multinational as seen in Amazon or Microsoft, which started the same. However, in the early stage, you may not have the money to execute certain tasks. Today, a website is absolutely important for small businesses and if you do not have the budget, you have to find a way around. This is why the knowledge on “how to make a website for my small business” is crucial and is what we would be discussing in this article.
Although web design seems farfetched, the processes involving “how to make a website for my small business” is not as difficult as it seems. For one, you need a user-friendly website builder that would make things easier for you with little or no experience. Therefore, with the right tools, you can be sure to save a lot of costs as well as breeze through building a website for your small business.
What are the factors to consider when making a website for my small business?
Making a website is as flexible as its gets because there is really no one single solution for all. The choices you make and the actions you take depends on the goals of your business. This also plays a major role in the kind of designs you adopt as well as the tools you make use of during this process.
Basically, a business that sells electronics would surely require a different website from one that deals with building and construction. An electronics sales business would lay more emphasis on good quality images, listing product descriptions, and establishing an eCommerce platform from which customers can simply order. On the other hand, a building and construction company would lean towards the side of customer testimonials, past projects, and why you as a customer need to click their CTA (Call to action button).
As a result of this, there are certain questions you should ask and answer about your business before embarking on the process of making your small business website. Although there are several, the most important questions include:
- What is the most important information you need your visitors to see?
- What actions do you want your visitors to take after going through your site? This could be buying a product, requesting a quote, or getting an agent to call them back.
- What is the best way to display the types of products or services you offer?
- Is there a need for an online portfolio or evidence of past work to convince your visitors and convert them into potential customers?
Answering those questions above would ensure that you start with the right information from the onset and leave little room for mistakes. Also, another thing you should consider is your expected traffic to your site. For example, eCommerce businesses would surely receive more visitors than a dentist’s office, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that the dentist’s business website is performing poorer. In the end, the type of business line you’re in would play a huge role in the amount of traffic you get.
How to make a website for my small business in 7 easy steps
Answering the questions above in detail would give you a clear direction of what your business wants to accomplish, and what it needs on the site to get that done. After this, you can proceed to these 7 steps on how to make a website for my small business. They are easy and straightforward and would help launch an efficient online presence for your business. The steps include:
- Select a website building platform
- Choose a domain name
- Select a hosting provider
- Select a theme or template for your website
- Add relevant content to your business for your visitors
- Search engines optimize your website and content
- Publish your website
Step 1: Select a website building platform
Choosing a website-building platform is the first step in your quest for “how to create a website for my small business”. Ideally, you should work with a building platform that is easy to understand and does not require any coding knowledge. Website builders that require coding are for experts and could be much difficult to work with. Here are some of the best website builders that you can opt for:
WordPress
WordPress is one of the most popular website builders in the world, and at the moment, the platform powers over 37% of websites around the world. There are two types of WordPress; wordpress.com and wordpress.org. Go for the wordpress.org version as it gives you unlimited access and full control over your website, unlike wordpress.com. However, note that you would need to purchase a hosting service from an external source.
Other hosted website builders
On the other hand, you can also opt for hosted website builders, which are more like an all-in-one solution for businesses. For example, Square Space and Wix are some of the best in the business today, and they offer a platform to completely build your site from scratch. They both include hosting and simplifies website building by allowing you to customize its appearance using a drag and drop tool.
However, the little price you would pay for this is the fact that your site customization would be limited to their themes and templates. Although the platforms are free, do note that you would have to opt for a paid plan in order to really benefit from the features it would offer your business.
Our recommendation
we recommend that you make use of WordPress.org due to its complete access and zero restriction, as this would be the best for your small business. In addition, you do not need to understand the technicalities of website design to make use of the platform and it is completely free plus super flexible. With the available plugins, there is really no limit on the number of customizations you can carry out on the site. You can also choose to leave the design and customization to our team of experts at https://iconicdigitalworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Best-kid-business-ideas-2021-4.jpgdigitalworld to create the best possible platform, tailored to the specifics of your business. In this article, we would be focusing on the steps to take using WordPress.
Step 2: Choose a domain name
The domain name of your business is what visitors would type in the search bar (e.g. www.mybsinessxxxxx.com). However, the name you settle for should not be at random, but rather directly related to your business name and the services you offer. A good example of this is the common dentist website https://www.todaysbestdentists.com/. Taking a look at the domain name alone, you can tell that the site is everything about dentists and wouldn’t mistake it for an engineering or eCommerce website.
Selecting a perfect domain name for your business could be difficult, therefore, you can turn to online domain name generators to help out. Good examples of this are DomainWheel and learn domain search. Also, keep the following in mind when selecting domain names:
- It should be easy to spell
- The name should include relevant keywords to your business
- It should be as short as possible
You can proceed to purchase a domain name from recommended sites like godaddy or namecheap. After that, take note of the name as you would be registering it when it is time to sign up for hosting in the next step.
Step 3: Select a hosting provider
When using WordPress, you would need to purchase an external hosting provider unlike using Wix or square space. Basically, a hosting provider is a server that stores the data of your website and ensures it is always online as opposed to complete self-hosting. Among the best hosting provider, bluehost stands out and is officially recommended by wordpress.org.
With as low as $3 per month, you can get to host your small business site, although as your business grows and more functionalities are incorporated into the site, you would need to upgrade. Blue host allows you to install WordPress with a click, therefore, you do not need any prior knowledge or expertise to get started.
Step 4: Select a theme or template for your website
WordPress offers a ton of themes and templates for you to choose from. These include both paid and free options with some being editable, ensuring that you are not limited in any way. With WordPress templates, you can customize until satisfaction. To access themes, simply login to the backend of your website and navigate to the Appearance and then themes.
After installing a theme, you would be able to customize it to your taste and if you have a little more budget, you could opt for a paid WordPress business theme. For example, a premium WordPress business theme comes with custom portfolios, page builders, and even eCommerce pages, providing cover for everything that you may need.
Step 5: Add relevant content to your business for your visitors
At this stage, you proceed to add relevant content to your website. This includes creating content across all pages like the home page, privacy, and policy, products and services, about, and more. Basically, most businesses should have the following:
Homepage:
the home page is the very first thing that your visitor would see when they visit your website. Therefore, it has to be top-notch and should give a rundown of what you do, easy navigation to other pages on your site, and why visitors should check out your content or services.
Portfolio or product page:
this page contains your services in detail, as well as relevant history on past works (for businesses that require such). Basically, the product page tells the customer what the business can do for them.
Contact page:
this page is opened for visitors who aren’t satisfied with the information available on the website and need to speak to an agent. Ideally, a visitor would likely have questions before purchasing your services, further emphasizing the importance of the page.
About page:
this page should include details about your business, like its history, the management, your team of professionals, and more.
Blog:
a blog is very important for driving traffic to your business website, from which you can convert new customers. Basically, it is a non-negotiable marketing tool that you should take advantage of.
If you need help on creating the right content across these listed pages as well as content for your blog, our content team is on ground to provide you the best services. Simply follow this link today to get a quote in no time.
Step 6: Search engine optimize your website and content
Developing the best website and even having the right content on it is not enough, as you have to ensure that the right people can find it. This is where SEO comes in. Search engine optimization is the act of ensuring your overall site and its content meets meet the standards set by search engines, and therefore rank as high as possible on search engine result pages (SERPs). This is one of the best ways to get traffic to your site, and it is really necessary for the best result.
Here are some of the basic things to keep in mind:
- Make use of the right keywords in your content across different posts and pages
- Select a responsive design to ensure that it is mobile-friendly
- Always include post names in their permalinks as this helps visibility
- Ensure you make use of internal and external links throughout your site.
- Our top recommendations for SEO plugins are Yoast SEO or RankMath, as they are some of the best in the business.
Step 7: Publish your website
The last step is to publish your website. Most website platforms allow you to keep your site private during building and publish it when done. However, with WordPress, your site would be visible on the net as soon as you install the WordPress theme with your hosting platform. However, ensure you dot all T’s and I’s before you publish, including:
- Taking time out to preview your website across different devices, including laptops, tablets, and mobile
- Crosschecking your content for grammatical error and accuracy of information
- Getting rid of filler content from the theme you applied on your site
Conclusion
With this article, you now have full knowledge on the question “how to make a website for my small business”. Online presence in today’s world is very important and would do your business a lot of good including bringing in new customers. With WordPress, you can easily create a website for your business if you follow the steps above. On the other hand, you can leave it to the professionals at Iconic Digital World, LLC to get the best possible outcome. If you already have a website, you can get a free evaluation today and be shock by how much it can be better.
