The Best Ways to Set Up a Website for Your Business
Is your business among the 36% of businesses that don’t have a website? You might think that it’s not necessary to run your business.
You’re losing customers and money to your competition. By not having a website, you’re essentially giving potential customers away. Your customers look up your business online before they call or visit your business.
Learning how to set up a website isn’t difficult or expensive. It is essential if you want to grow your business.
Keep reading to discover how to start a business website and get your business online.
1. Buy a Domain Name
The domain name is the website address that people type in to visit your site. It’s like a phone number, but for the internet.
A domain name has to have a few characteristics for it to be effective. Simplicity is the name of the game because you want people to remember it. Customers need to be able to type it correctly.
It might take a few tries to find the perfect domain name. Make sure that you research the name before you purchase it.
You don’t want to have to change it because you didn’t see if it’s a registered trademark or copyright.
2. Choose Hosting
Your website needs to reside on servers. A hosting plan provides the servers so you can store your website files. When someone visits your website, the server sends your site’s information to the person’s browser.
The website browser decodes the files and puts them together to form the final version of the website. For a small business website, a shared hosting plan is a good solution.
It’s the least expensive option. You have to choose a hosting company that has a great reputation for speed and security.
There are hosting options like Wix and Squarespace that combine hosting with a content management system (CMS). You do lose a degree of control when you use them. They also cost more than a standard shared hosting plan.
3. Wireframe Your Website Design
A wireframe is a design plan for your website. You sketch out where the content, image placement, and headings will go on each page.
You should also map out the navigation and the number of pages for your site. If you have an ecommerce store with hundreds of products, you should use one template for product pages.
Make sure the navigation is clear so potential customers can find products within a couple of clicks.
If you’re not sure what you want your site to look like, look to others for inspiration. Look at sites in your industry.
4. Choose Your Content Management System
A content management system is the backend of your site. This is where you’ll add and delete pages, edit content, and add images.
The most popular content management system is WordPress, which has almost 40% market share.
It’s free to use, has a huge community of developers, and it’s easy to use.
The good thing about installing a CMS is that you can do it with one click. Most hosting companies offer WordPress hosting. That lets you install the CMS without programming knowledge.
5. Use a Template or Customize Your Site?
You have a few options to start a business website. WordPress and other content management systems have themes or templates to use.
They allow you to easily design the website. All you have to do is fill in your content, change the branding, and add images.
Does your site need more customizations than a template can offer? You can try to do these customizations yourself. You’ll have to take time to learn how to code.
The alternative is to hire a website developer that can do the customizations for you. That will save time and give you a site that suits your business.
6. Install Plugins
If you use WordPress as your CMS, you’ll need to install plugins to make it perform better. A plugin is a small program that adds functionality to your site.
There are plugins that help your site with SEO. Plugins can compress image files, which helps your site load faster.
You can overdo it with plugins. Be very clear about the functions you need for your site. Too many plugins slow your site down.
Focus on plugins that improve speed and security first. Keep your site to 20 plugins or less.
7. Test Your Site
This is one of the lost business website tips. You might be eager to launch your site, but you should take the time to test it first.
Test the load time to make sure that it’s fast. Use Google Page Speed Insights, which tests speed on mobile and desktop devices.
Have a few people go through your site for usability and broken links. Test the site on different devices.
Ask your testers for feedback about the navigation, site speed, and content. You may have to go back and make minor adjustments.
8. Fill Out Directory Listings
What happens when you make your website live? You can’t expect people to just show up out of nowhere. You have to promote it.
Start by filling out directory listings on Google My Business and Bing Places. These are free business listings that help your business appear in local search results.
There are other industry-specific directories that you should consider as well.
How to Set Up a Website in a Few Steps
You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to learn how to set up a website. You do need to do some legwork to get it ready.
Follow the steps in this article, and you’ll have your business website in a short period of time.
Now that you know how to start a business website, you’ll need to learn how to get more traffic to it. Check out the articles in the blog for tips to build your online presence today!
