Even if your business doesn’t involve eCommerce, having an online presence with a professional looking website it crucial for credibility, not to mention engaging visitors.
These stats speak for themselves:
This guide maps out the Nine Steps to create a website that makes your business stand out for all the right reasons. We’ve concentrated on giving you the Top Tips and Top Mistakes for each step, so you can take the right actions with no time waste.
And if you're looking to bringing new ideas to life without any cost barrier, check out the Business Starter Kit – get all this for free: LLC registration, a .com domain, business email, easy website builder, SEO tool to get found online, and social media tool to for fast posts to grow your reach. What’s stopping you?
Your website is the primary way people gauge whether to take your business seriously or not. It’s also a vital hub for your marketing efforts, like social media, email campaigns, and ranking high in search results.
The fact is that every small business needs a website, because if done right, it will keep on delivering ROI indefinitely. Here’s a summary of why:
Do you still feel a website isn't a high priority for your small business? Let’s explore the most common myths:
For those who are too busy right now to read further for a deeper dive, here’s a highlight of the key things you need to keep in mind about websites:
DO:
DON’T:
Rather than giving you the same old information to build any website, discover the Top Tips and Mistakes tat make sure your site is the gift that that keeps on giving.
This is a step that people often skip, but if you take the extra time to do this, you’ll boost the long term ROI of your website in a major way. A site without clear goals is like taking a road trip without a destination.
To narrow down your primary goal, ask yourself these core questions:
Top Tips:
Top Mistakes:
The platform you choose for your website will determine crucial aspects which affect your business, like how much control you have, how easy it is to maintain, and what features you can have.
Migrating platforms further down the road can be a major headache, so take time to pick the right one. These are the most popular options, along with some points to consider:
Top Tips:
Top Mistakes:
Learn more: Want a cheap e-commerce website? Here are 4 ways to get it.
Your domain name is your digital address, so it’s an important element of good branding. And when it comes to hosting, you’ll want to make sure they have a good reputation for security, no downtime, and consistently fast loading times.
Top Tips:
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Here are some useful resources to help you nail this step:
Domain Guides:
Domain Tools:
Hosting Guides:
A good website needs to be instantly compelling to your target audience. Keep the 3 Second Rule in mind i.e your website has just moments to catch a visitor’s attention before they click away.
Branding is something you could write a book on, and large companies spend fortunes on it. But for small businesses, the good news is that most website platforms come with pre-made templates for you to choose from.
Find a template theme you like the look of, then make it your own. Also do some research online to look at successful design templates in your industry.
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Top Mistakes:
Here are some useful resources to make your branding stand out, while keeping things simple:
Guides:
Tools:
Make no mistake, quality website content is crucial. This is your initial sales pitch. Compelling copy and visuals can turn curious visitors into loyal customers. You’ll want to make sure your content is well-structured, engaging, helpful, and trust-building.
Bear in mind that each page on your site has a specific purpose. And together, they need to create a seamless experience for visitors, guiding them from learning about your business to taking action – this could be subscribing to your newsletter, making a purchase, scheduling a consultation, or even bookmarking your site so they can come back later.
Different types of businesses will obviously have unique priorities with their content. For example a restaurant needs a stand out menu section with good descriptions and a booking feature, while a local bakery should have lots of mouth watering pictures to make people want to visit their store.
Now let’s look at the core pages that every website needs to have:
As you become more established adding a Blog, where you share helpful articles that your customers will find interesting, is a great way to boost your marketing success.
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Top Mistakes:
Here are some useful resources to help you create content that makes an impact:
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Tools:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is what makes your website get found by people that are looking for what you offer. It drives ‘organic traffic’ i.e. site visitors that you don’t pay for with ads. This reduces your marketing costs, and helps you grow your customer base.
The main task for SEO is to optimize your content with the relevant keywords and phrases. For example, ‘best cupcakes in Santa Monica’ for a local bakery, or ‘affordable business coaching’ for a consultant.
There are other factors that search engine algorithms look at to decide when and how high to rank your website, like context, and whether people engage with your content.
You have to keep finetuning to rank higher than competitors. Search engines these days are more sophisticated, and are primarily looking for quality sites that offer good customer experience. So SEO is an ongoing process, not a sprint.
Top Tips:
Top Mistakes:
We’ll be releasing a helpful guide in the near future that helps small businesses cut through the complexity of SEO, but here are some useful resources in the meantime:
Guides:
Tools:
Customers need to feel confident when interacting with your site, especially if they’re sharing personal and payment information. Good security builds trust, and protects your business, so you don’t want to skip this step.
Top Tips:
Top Mistakes:
Here are some useful resources to get everything safely buttoned up:
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Tools:
Before launching your website, you’ll want to do some testing to make sure it’s error-free, and working smoothly across different devices. You only get to make one first impression, so taking a little extra time for this step is worth it.
Top Tips:
Top Mistakes:
Here are some useful resources to iron out all the creases:
Guides:
Tools:
A website is like your home, it needs regular maintenance to remain in top condition. You’ll need to make sure your site remains relevant, secure, and optimized for performance, all of which will help you convert visitors and build loyalty.
Top Tips:
Top Mistakes:
Here are some useful resources to help keep your website doing its job like a well oiled machine:
Guide:
Tool:
Modern website builders make it easy to create a website yourself. But sometimes, it’s worth the extra spend to hire a professional.
For example, you may need advanced features, or a specific design that you can’t find in the generic templates. Or maybe you simply have more important things to do than play around with a web builder, so saving time would be a smartest investment for you.
Top Tips:
Top Mistakes:
Guides:
Think of a website like a digital shop front, open 24/7 to the world. Even if you’re only promoting yourself, it’s your online presence that should instantly make people want to know more.
Your site is also the centralized hub to focus a range of marketing around, from lead capture and newsletter sign-ups, to paid advertising. With all this in mind, making sure it has strong impact is worth taking the time to get right.
An appealing website is the gift that keeps on giving. But if done poorly, you’ll basically be broadcasting to the world that you’re not credible.
This guide gives you the Nine Steps to create a successful website, with Top Tips and Top Mistakes, to make sure you nail the most important aspects. You’ll also find examples of tools to simplify things, and guides for further learning. Bon voyage on launching your ship into the digital waters!
For more of a steer on easy tools that can help you achieve your goals, including a short Quiz that offers recommendations based on what stage your business is at, check out the Build & Grow Hub.
We also think this will be a helpful read: Three Pillars of a Successful Startup – Ultimate Guide for Small Businesses.
And if you're looking to bringing new ideas to life without any cost barrier, check out the Business Starter Kit – get all this for free: LLC registration, a .com domain, business email, easy website builder, SEO tool to get found online, and social media tool to for fast posts to grow your reach. What’s stopping you?
What is the cost of website design for small business?
This will depend on the complexity your design, features, number of pages, and level of customization. Most small businesses can simply use a website builder, which will lower your costs significantly, compared to the early days when you had to hire a website designer to create one from scratch.
What is a website builder?
This is a platform that allows you to create and design a site without needing web development knowledge. You’ll get a user-friendly interface, drag-and-drop functionality, a range of templates, and customization options.
What is the best website builder for small business?
These days there’s a wide range of options. Some have better design templates and more flexibility, while others offer inbuilt payment for ecommerce and more advanced features.
See Step 2 of this guide.
As a small business, these are some of the key features to look out for:
What is the easiest website builder?
If you want to get a site up and running in minutes, one of the easiest platforms is Site Maker. But shop around to make sure you choose a platform that suits your specific needs.
Why is web hosting important for a small business?
This is the digital parking space for your domain name and website. Hosting services provide the essential infrastructure you need to run your website, including storage space for files, bandwidth for web traffic, and cyber security.
What is the best domain name registrar for small business?
As with website builders, there are lots of options. Namecheap is ranked high for reliability and affordability, but shop around to compare.
When choosing a domain registrar, consider things like:
How to design a logo?
Try Logo Maker. it makes things super easy by giving you templates to work with, so you don’t need any design skills. And it’s free, so you can play around as much as you like at no cost.
How to increase brand awareness for small business?
Steps 4 and 5 of this guide explain how to build a brand for your small business. Once that’s done, there are a range of marketing techniques to let the world know how great your are.
Read: Need-to-know marketing strategies for small business startups. This guide also answers the question: How can content marketing help your small business?
How to create content?
Check out Step 5 of this guide for Top Tips to get the ball rolling. Also read these guides:
Why is SEO important for small business?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is what makes your website get found by people that are looking for what you offer. It drives ‘organic traffic’ i.e. site visitors that you don’t pay for with ads. This reduces your marketing costs, and helps you grow your customer base. See Step 6 of this guide to learn more.
What are the biggest mistakes small business owners make when using SEO?
These would be: ruining your content by overusing keywords, not keeping your content optimized with the keywords people are using to search for your business, and neglecting the meta descriptions which display is search results. See Step 6 of this guide to learn more.
What is the cost of SEO for small business?
This will vary depending on factors like what tools you’re using, or the type of experts you employ.
How to improve SEO?
We recommend RelateSEO, as it’s affordable and does all the heavy lifting for you. It gives you a customized To Do list, with step-by-step video guides.
Also read this guide, designed for small business needs: Make sure your new website gets found: SEO need-to-know.
Why is cyber security important for small business?
Unfortunately, cyber criminals are no longer focus only on large companies, because smaller businesses are often easier targets.
Cyber security acts to protect your website and IT equipment from cyberattacks. No small business can afford downtime because of malware, or loss of customer trust if there’s a data breach.
How to improve website security?
Check out the Top Tips in Step 7 of this guide. We also recommend SiteLock for affordable, 24/7 automated scanning against malware and cyber crime.
How much does website maintenance cost for a small business?
Running costs will vary significantly depending on your platform and feature complexity. Then there’s the time factor if you do the maintenance yourself, like updating plugins, backups, and testing. You may want to try Managed Wordpress, where you get tons of flexibility without the usual hassles.
Or if you’re going with another web builder platform, be sure to check out factors like:
From website builders to coding from scratch, here’s how you can get your ideas online.
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