Small Business Guide To Creating a Website

Creating a Professional Website For Your Small Business
The internet has become an integral tool for businesses of all sizes. A professional website allows you to promote your business, attract customers, and generate revenue. For small businesses in particular, a website provides an easy and affordable way to gain an online presence and compete with larger competitors.
However, figuring out how to build a successful business website can seem daunting, especially for those just starting out. There are many considerations in deciding what type of website to build, how to design it effectively, and what functionality is needed. The process requires strategic thinking around your business goals as well as technical knowledge of domains, hosting, and building the actual site.
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While every business’ needs are different, there are common steps that most small businesses should follow in creating an effective website for their company. Establishing a solid foundation at the beginning helps ensure a website that provides value now and has the flexibility to grow with your business over time.

Determining Your Website Goals

Before selecting a domain name or website builder, you must determine the primary goals of your website and how it will support your business objectives. Your goals will guide decisions throughout the entire creation process.

Some common goals include:

Building brand awareness and credibility. A professional website presents your business as legitimate and establishes you as an expert in your industry.
Attracting and engaging customers. A website allows potential customers to learn about your products and services, view content, and contact you.
Providing information. Your website becomes the central source of pertinent information for customers, including details about your offerings, expertise, location, and customer reviews.
Generating leads and sales. By including forms, pricing information, and an online store, your website can turn visitors into paying customers.

By identifying your main goals, you can then prioritize the functionality, content, and design that will best achieve those goals for your website.

Choosing a Domain Name and Web Host

Armed with your goals, the next step is selecting your web address, or domain name. Your domain name should be:

Short and easy to spell. Simple, short domain names are easier for customers to remember and type correctly.
Relevant to your business. Including elements of your company or brand name makes the domain reflective of what you do.
Still available. Check availability on websites like GoDaddy before purchasing.

As Daniel Farrah noted in a recent ForbesAdvisory editorial,”A good domain name may help you place higher in rankings, which can increase the number of people who click to access your site.”

Once you choose a domain name, you’ll need to register it from a domain registrar and secure web hosting. Web hosting provides the software, servers, bandwidth, and technical tools needed to make your website accessible online.

Small business hosting plans start at just a few dollars per month and include features like:

Reliability and uptime. You’ll want a host with a proven track record and guaranteed uptime.
Speed and performance. Load times impact how customers view your business, so choose a host that can deliver fast site speeds.
Regular backups. Automatic backups ensure your site files and content are protected in the event of data loss.
24/7 support. Having customer support available around the clock gives you peace of mind.

Selecting a Website Builder

Website builders, also known as hosts, offer easy-to-use drag-and-drop interfaces that allow you to create a website without any coding knowledge. Popular options include Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly. Website builders offer template-based solutions customized to match different business types. They provide features like:

Professional website templates in various styles
Point-and-click editors for adding pages, images, videos, and blogs
E-commerce functionality to sell products
SEO optimization and reporting tools
Mobile responsiveness

Though less customizable, builders are ideal for small businesses on a budget that need a fast, functional site. Alternatively, you can hire a web designer or developer to create a fully custom website from scratch.

Designing an Effective Website

After selecting your tools, it’s time to design your actual website. Follow these tips:

Create intuitive navigation with a logical page structure. Place the most important pages like “About” and “Services” prominently.
Use large, high-quality images and videos to visually communicate your brand.
Write concise, relevant content focused on customer needs. Include specific details on your offerings and expertise.
Integrate key pages like “About Us”, “Services”, “Pricing”, “Portfolio”, and “Contact”.
Highlight social proof through customer testimonials and case studies.
Incorporate an intuitive contact or quote request form.
Consider including an online store if product or service sales are a main goal. Choose an ecommerce platform like Shopify or WooCommerce to facilitate online transactions.
Optimize your site for search engines by including relevant titles, meta descriptions and keywords throughout content and URLs.

Testing, Launching and Maintaining Your Website

Before going live with your site, thoroughly test all functionality, forms, and payment processes. So, you should do the following:

Double-check images, links and code for any obvious errors.
Promote your new website through email marketing, social media and search engine optimization.
Monitor traffic and leads using analytics tools like Google Analytics.
Update and refresh content on an ongoing basis to keep customers engaged.
Fix any broken links, images or code issues immediately.
Backup your site files and database regularly in case of hosting disruptions or data loss.

In conclusion, by following these best practices for creating a strategic, functional and well-designed website, small businesses can effectively promote their brands, attract customers and generate revenue online and physically as well from online referrals. You could also leverage physical strategies to generate more income. As Samuel, a business expert noted while commenting on how to build a profitable Turo Car Rental business recommended a traditional but underrated profit model saying,”Over time, reinvest your profits into expanding your fleet with additional high-demand vehicles to increase revenue and grow your Turo car rental business.”

That being said, with the right foundation in place, a business website becomes a flexible tool that can grow and evolve alongside your company for years to come. With effort and ongoing optimization, a website is one of the smartest investments any small business can make.