It’s easy, really. My first advice – don’t focus on the financials. Instead, understand the ‘why’s’ of website building.
Unless you want to, you won’t need a professional website developer. What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) website builders are easy to use.
I encourage you to check out these swashbuckling websites, all built on Wix, a user-friendly website builder.
Here are the steps you should follow to own a fully functional business website.
Determine The Key Business Goal Of Your Website
Is your website an extended online business card? Or is it a complex platform where users can engage in transactions with your brand?
A minimalist website typically has information on business working hours, address/location, and contact details.
Or you may need a more sophisticated one that:
- has all that a minimalist website offers
- lists your products
- allows your customers to pre-book items
- lets them explore new offers
- enables them to register for newsletters
Your goal determines the money, time, and planning effort you’ll invest in the website.
Get A Domain Name For Your Business Website
A website’s domain name is like the physical address of your business/office. Pick a domain name that is the same or at least similar to your business name.
Consider the following costs:
- Cost of buying the domain name
- Cost of registering your domain name every year
You can register a domain name from Domain.com, or GoDaddy, or get one from website builder platforms like Wix.
Select A Web Hosting Service
Web hosting is the storage space where every bit of your website’s data is ‘hosted’, such that it remains available to users 24×7.
While shared hosting works alright for medium-sized business websites, I recommend a VPS if you believe your website is going to grow quickly.
Dedicated hosting is for websites that simply can’t make do with anything less than the best availability in terms of server resources and security.
Choose A Website Builder
The three golden rules of choosing a website builder are, to choose something that:
- Let’s you export your website should anything go wrong in the future
- Allows you to add functionality such as ecommerce, membership accounts, loyalty programs, etc. when needed
- Has enough public domain information available so that you can find your way out of routine troubleshooting
Wix, Weebly, WordPress, GoDaddy Website Builder – the options are endless. I recommend you use a free trial (almost all website builders offer one), experiment, and see what works better.
Website content has always been the king. If you want to please the search engines, you need to bow to the king, aka, create new content that is engaging, informative and original.
Before taking it to live, spend time browsing each section like a new visitor on various browsers like Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. Access your site from mobile devices to ensure that you have a 100% mobile-friendly website.
Pay Attention To UX And Invest in Tools
Your site design will determine the user experience (UX), which will further influence your site traffic and conversion.
Make sure your site is interactive and has an intuitive design. You can take the help of a UX designer to optimize the elements in your site. The job of a UX designer is to ensure that users have a positive experience while interacting with your site.
The simplicity of a website makes navigation straightforward for all users irrespective of their age and tech-friendliness. Moreover, simple navigation with easily accessible menu options will make navigation easy on all devices.
Research shows that modern consumers like to be guided. Make sure to include visible CTAs like “Buy Now”, “Add to Cart”, “Subscribe” and “Request Quote” throughout your site depending on your site goal.
One of the best ways to understand the behavior of your customers is to run experiments. Tools like Omniconvert helps you to run A/B tests where you can modify the various elements on your website. You can run as many tests as you wish and optimize the entire journey of your customers.
The loading speed of your pages will influence traffic more than you know. Using a site speed tracker and analytics add-ons for analyzing your webpage loading speed will enable you to track your site speed in almost real-time.
Besides, pay attention to reviews and testimonials. Nothing builds trust more quickly and effectively than genuine testimonials. For a new business, testimonials and reviews can serve as traffic magnets. Since most people haven’t heard of your brand, testimonials can serve as organic promotion material and a watermark of quality.
Revel in The Power of Daily Blogging
Blogging is a robust digital marketing instrument that hosts keywords, inbound and outbound links, and helps you promote your brand name in a new market. You should definitely create a blog and engage in the power of daily blogging.
Thousands of people look for guides online. If you can answer the most commonly asked “how-to” questions on your site or blog section, you can attract thousands of visitors thereby increasing your site’s visibility.
Users love product images and videos. It helps them assess the quality of a product and influences their buying decision. No matter how minimal you want your site to be, don’t skimp on the product image and video quality.
A FAQ section can accommodate high volume keywords with ease. It can act as a key player in your SEO game. Let your visitors find your site from Google SERPs by raking for the commonly searched terms and phrases.
Market Your Website
Do not forget to market your website because you need visitors to generate conversions. There is no use of a website that can’t attract visitors.
It is crucial to market your website by leveraging the power of marketing automation that will help you to gain the attention of prospects using an array of channels like email marketing, SEO, PPC, Social Media Marketing, and Mobile Marketing.
You can market your website by using Facebook Lead Ads to generate leads. Furthermore, use apps like Automate.io to connect your Facebook Leads to CRM like Salesforce, HubSpot, to add them to your contact database. It is a cloud application that lets you connect apps and create workflows.
Final Thoughts
More than 92% of all businesses expect to own a running website by the end of this year. More than 80% of your potential customers are online right now looking at reviews and testimonials that your competitors have uploaded.
This is your turn to make a move. Following these 9 simple steps can get you a website within a couple of hours and a steady flow of customers too.