Everyone knows you need a website, but many small businesses still do not have one because they find it too complicated or expensive. Building a basic business, personal website does not need to be extremely complicated or costly. Here, we will help in how to create a basic website that will allow customers to locate your business, find your contact details, and learn about the products or services that your company offers. If you set up a good basic website from the start, then you can add on additional features in the future.
Step 1: Choose your Business/ Personal Website’s Name
Here are the 4 primary things to keep in mind when choosing a domain name for your small business website:
- Whenever possible your domain should contain your company name.
- Domain names are important for search engines, like Google. When possible they should include words that people are likely to use when searching for your business and/or the products and services you sell.
- Domain names should be easy to pronounce and remember. Keep your name as short as possible and avoid punctuation like dashes.
- Domain names should be unique. You want to minimize the chance of someone trying to reach your business ending up at a different site.
- Always want to choose the .COM version of a domain.
Step 2: Outline the content and pages that you want on your site.
You should have your content outlined before you start designing your small business website. Design is secondary to content and should facilitate client’s easily finding the content they are looking for. Every website should have 5 pages to start:
- Homepage: On the homepage, include the name of your business, where you’re located or area you serve, plus give one or 2 reasons to do business with your company.
- Products and Services: a page with details about the products you sell or services your provide. On the page which you detail products or services, spend one to five sentences describing each type you offer and give the pricing.
- Testimonials: Lend credibility, trustworthiness, and show your experience.
- About Us: Provide your background, include testimonials, and list organization memberships like being part of the Better Business Bureau.
- Contact Us: Your address, email, phone number, the hours you are open for business, and links to any social media accounts such as Twitter and Facebook. You should also Embed a google map of your location and include different ways of getting there (ie subway, train, car etc) if applicable.
In addition to a contact page your phone and address (if applicable) information along with any social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter, should be prominently featured on every page of your site. For search engine purposes make sure that your phone number and address are text and not part of an image.
Step 3: Decide on a Logo
The colors and type of logo that you have will determine the colors and other design elements of your entire site, so start the design process with your logo. If you already have a logo that you are using in the offline world, then you want to be consistent and use a digital copy of this for your small business website as well.
Step 4: Get your website live
After finishing over design and development, get your site onboard and go LIVE over internet.