TABLE OF CONTENTS
Read our quick and easy guide to learning how to create a small business website. We’ll walk you through important design considerations, useful tools, and how to make your site work.
How to Make a Website: A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Started
Your website is the most effective sales and marketing tool in your arsenal. In just five easy steps, you can create a beautiful personal or business website that attracts visitors and excites them to work with you. Here’s how to get started.
1. Choose a domain name
A domain is the unique name of your website.
You can choose any name you want, but it’s best to have one that matches your business or professional name. Not only does this keep your brand consistent, but it can also significantly affect how you appear in search engine results. A good domain name can help you rank higher, which can increase the number of people who click through to your site.
While brainstorming domain names, keep these helpful tips in mind:
Include keywords relevant to your business to increase your visibility in search engines. Make sure it’s easy to type. If you’re having trouble brainstorming ideas, use a domain name generator as a starting point. Keep your domain short so it’s easier for visitors to remember. Avoid abbreviations, acronyms, hyphens and numbers. Try using traditional top-level domains or top-level domains such as .com or .net or one that best relates to you or your business. Make sure no one else is already using it. While you can buy a domain from someone else, this can be expensive. You’re better off choosing another name or using a different top-level domain, such as .net.
2. Register your domain and choose your design and hosting providers
Once you’ve decided on a domain name, you’ll need to register it with a domain registrar. You can do this through a website like Domain.com or Network Solutions. Keep in mind that these providers simply register the domain ownership for you, which can cost anywhere from INR 500 to INR 1,000 per year, depending on your TLD.
You’ll still need to find another provider to host the URL where you’ll build your website, and potentially use another program to design it. To keep things simple, you can choose to register your domain with a provider that offers registration, hosting and design capabilities.
If you have little or no coding experience, you may want an all-in-one option like WordPress, Squarespace, or Wix.
If you choose to use separate companies to manage your hosting and web design, look for a hosting service that offers benefits such as technical support, a free domain name, or a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate.
You should highly value the SSL certificate as it is a global standard security technology that enables a secure connection and protects your and your visitors’ data and sensitive information. Simply put, this security measure adds the S in HTTPS to the front of a website’s URL. Search engines and visitors look favorably on it.
These features are more common with all-in-one providers, but there’s no guarantee, so make sure the one you choose offers them before buying a plan.
Popular web hosts with and without built-in design integrations are Bluehost, DreamHost, GoDaddy, and InMotion.
If your web host doesn’t offer any integration features, some third-party design software to consider are Canva and Adobe Creative Cloud apps. You can create layouts on these platforms and embed them on your website pages.
3. Add useful pages and engaging content
You have many options when it comes to organizing your content about your business and its services.
That said, make an effort to include these important pages on your website:
An amazing home page. The central hub of your business website should captivate people and tell them exactly what you do and who you serve. It incorporates attractive graphics, readable fonts, concise and clear descriptions and attractive calls to action.An enlightening “About Us” page. Share the origin story of your business. Highlight your achievements, mission and values. You can also introduce any team member to foster deeper connections with customers.Reservation page or store. Generate more revenue and integrate with a third-party online programming platform or e-commerce platform such as HoneyBook or WooCommerce.An accessible contact page. Include social media accounts, emails, phone numbers, addresses and a contact form to make it easy for people to contact you. If it suits your business, add your hours of operation as well.Memorable content. Sharing compelling content establishes you as an expert in your industry and helps grow a loyal community for your business. This can include blogs, videos, podcast episodes, case studies, and more. As a bonus, this content can help increase your ranking in search results and increase site visitors.A robust FAQ page. Providing answers to common questions not only helps build more trust with your brand, but can also reduce the number of calls and support tickets you receive.Testimonies and press coverage. Increase your credibility by sharing your successes. Create a page that shares positive reviews of your services and includes any notable media mentions of your business.
4. Optimize your website for search engines
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the practice of perfecting your business website so that your pages rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs), especially Google. It’s what helps people find you.
As you build your website, keep these basic SEO practices in mind to increase your visibility and drive more traffic:
Use relevant phrases, called keywords, in your posts and pages. However, don’t use keywords just for them. Make sure your choices are intentional. Excessive usage can negatively affect your ranking. Consistently publish valuable content for your customers or readers. Conduct routine content audits or cleanups to see what you can consolidate or update. Keep your website loading speed as low as possible by optimizing images or enabling browser caching. These tweaks can help your website rank higher in search engine results. You can measure your page speed GTmetrix. (Learn more about the importance of web page load speed.) Make sure your design and content work well on computers, mobile phones, and tablets. Don’t underestimate the performance of your website on mobile devices. Up to half of web traffic now comes from smartphones.
It’s great to have a well-designed business website, but search engines want to see more than that to establish your authority when they index you in search results.
As you optimize your site for search, be sure to keep your visitors in mind. You want to choose easy navigation systems and create pages that allow for fast load times. To accommodate a variety of user abilities, follow Census of India guidelines to make your site as accessible as possible.
5. Review your site before clicking “Publish”
Before you launch your website into the real world, you’ll need to test it to make sure it’s working properly.
Among other things, make sure that:
Proofread your content to make sure everything is accurate and error-free. Check for broken links. Remove any filler content from your website theme or template. Test your website with browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari and more. Connect your website to Google analytics to monitor its performance.
When you’re ready, press Publish. To help drive traffic to your newly created website, share it with friends, market to clients, and include it on your LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and other social media profiles.
Keep your site updated
You’re not done with your site the moment you hit publish. To stay high in search rankings and improve your visitors’ experience, you’ll need to constantly maintain your website. Consider adding the following to your webmaster to-do list:
Use webmaster and analytics tools like Google Analytics to monitor how people use your site. Some website engagement metrics to track include bounce rates, click-through rates, and average session duration. Regularly update your website with blog posts, products and promotional offers. Perform monthly reviews to ensure that all aspects of your website, including internal and external links, pages, and plugins, are working as intended. Update your “About Us” page with new team members or achievements.
As time goes on, you may want to foster relationships with other business sites to establish credibility and improve your SEO. When other important websites link to your website, search engines see your site as more credible and worthy of ranking higher in the results.
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