5 steps on how to create a website for your small business
Every small business needs a website. This is a fact in today’s world and one that helps business rise above the competition and create a respectable reputation of the market.
There are many templates and pre-maid solutions you can buy or use for free. However, this doesn’t make them optimised enough to bring high Google rankings. Also, Return on Investment and conversion for your small business website visitors are crucial to bring you revenue and help you position yourself in your business activity.
Whether you are selling products and services online, or use your website as a way to present yourself to the public and potential customers, the bottom line is the same. It has to be properly designed, visually appealing and with compelling content in order to help you grow your business.
But building a website is not so hard. You can hire professionals to do it, or you can do it by yourself if you understand the process. Whatever you decide, these are some steps you should know about when it comes to a website for your small business.
1. Define your website
Before building your website, you have to define it. This includes making sure that its purpose effectively covers your business. Depending on this, you will plan the appropriate materials to use as content and prepare other necessary information.
For example, a website can be informational, providing your customers, clients and partners with information about you and your business. One type of these websites can be static, meaning that there is no new content and it is nothing more than an expansion of your business card.
On the other hand, you can add some articles, images and video materials to the website on a regular basis, thus providing additional information to your customers. Online sale can be only one part of your website and you can use your products as topics of the articles. Have in mind that online sale will require that you have secured paying options and safety protocol to protect the personal data of your customers.
2. Choose a domain name
A domain name is very important since it will bring you traffic and define your brand. Try to connect it to your business and don’t choose the name that closely resembles your competition’s domain. If possible, incorporate a keyword in the domain name, but only if it sounds natural.
Your business needs its own domain name because it sounds professional and inspires confidence. It will help your customers to find you easily, you can keep it even if you change servers and it shows that you invested in your image.
3. Make your website easy to use
Most of the people today use mobile phones to access websites, search engines and social media platforms. Therefore, you have to create a website accessible to all devices in order to appeal to your visitors. Use simple and easily navigational environment so your users wouldn’t be confused and give up from browsing.
Make sure that all pages work and that there are no broken links. You can place the most popular and newest articles on the main page, as well as the products and services you want to promote. It all comes to annoying your visitors as less as possible so they would continue to come back to your website.
4. Invest in Search Engine Optimisation
Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is something you don’t want to pass. It can place you high on the search result list and bring you new visitors that you can convert into customers. SEO can save you money during planning a marketing campaign and help you understand which parts of your website work, and which don’t.
For example, Call-to-Action or CTA button is one of the tools that can help you since it compels a user to complete a certain action. With great design and carefully harmonized colours, CTA can help you boost conversion on your website. Use SEO tools like Google Analytics and Google Keyword Planner to develop successful search engine optimisation.
5. Create great content
Great content is important to SEO, your credibility and distinguishing yourself from other similar websites and business competition. It includes textual and visual content, like images and videos. Make sure that all the materials you make fall under the copyright protection so you can protect yourself and your content.
Use original material and respect authors’ who created it so you wouldn’t commit infringement. Use blogging tools to create content quicker and easier. Additionally, Google algorithm used for crawling the websites and ranking them in search results is very strict and requires quality, original articles. Check what topics are popular among your audience and what might create the biggest interest since that will help you increase the traffic.
All in all
This is enough information to help you create a functional and working website for your small business. You can add an online store, secure billing form and other features that will help you develop your business further. Only don’t forget to take into consideration practical and functional aspects so your visitors can easily navigate through your pages.
