This article is intended for small business owners who want to construct a Built a Company Website or update an existing one.
Table of Content
- Identify the major goal of your website
- Choose a domain name
- Choose a web host
- Build your pages
- Construct your payment system
- Test and publish your website
- Market your website on social media
- Invest in search engine optimization (SEO)
- Improve image quality
- Increase the speed of your website
- Keep your website updated
- Business website FAQs
A Small Business Guide to Build Website for Company (Complete Guide)
- You must have a website for your small business. Here’s how to make one.
Creating a small business website for your company is essential for informing your customers, explaining your value proposition, increasing brand recognition, and driving sales. - To build a company website, you must first select a domain name and safe web hosting. Then, optimise your website to increase visitors and boost search engine rankings.
- Maintain an up-to-date website that is mobile-friendly. In order to increase your search engine rankings, make sure your site’s speed is appropriate.
Running a business, especially a brick-and-mortar one, without an online presence is no longer an option. Consumers use the internet for anything from product research to finding a store’s location and working hours. Even a simple, well-designed website can give you an advantage in your area, and if you have things to sell, your website can open up new markets and easily develop your business.
Website design software has grown to be simple to use for everyone.
You don’t need to know how to code to create an appealing and effective website. Whatever tool you select, you only need to follow a few simple guidelines and tips to give your website a professional appearance, make it easy to locate, and present your organization in the best light.
Here’s our step-by-step approach to building a profitable company website.
Identify the major goal of your website
A business website is typically used to provide basic information about your organization or as a direct platform for e-commerce. Whether you construct a simple website that communicates a bit about your company or a more complex e-commerce site, the most important thing you must do is state what your firm does – in straightforward terms – on the homepage. Customers should not have to dig around to find out if your organization can meet their needs, advised Erin Pheil of website design firm Follow bright.
Editor’s note: Are you looking for the best website design service for your company? Fill out the questionnaire below to have one of our vendor partners contact you about your requirements.
“Think about your specific user experience and the route the user will take as they visit your site,” says Gabriel Shaoolian, CEO of website design and digital marketing firm Blue Fountain Media. “Whatever the underlying purpose or focus of your website is, visitors should be able to attain it quickly, and the goal itself should be reinforced as users browse throughout your site.”
Choose a domain name
One of the most crucial aspects of any website is its domain name. It’s the URL you’ll share with current and prospective clients, as well as promote on social media. As a result, it should be descriptive and simple to remember and write in. To avoid consumer misunderstanding, try to keep it short and eliminate abbreviations, acronyms, and numerals.
You must also choose your top-level domain or TLD. This is the suffix that appears at the end of your domain name, such as.com,.net, or.biz. Nontraditional TLD names, on the other hand, have gained in popularity in recent years. These TLDs can be based on location, such as NYC, or company kind, such as. marketing,.agency, or law. While these can be useful,.com is still the most common. For additional information, see our post on selecting an unconventional TLD.
Once you’ve decided on a domain name, you’ll need to check its availability and buy it from a domain registrar. Here are several well-known domain registrars:
- Domain.com
- GoDaddy
- Squarespace
- Wix
Check copyrights as you choose your new domain name to ensure you are not infringing on someone else’s protected name. If your intended URL is already in use, you can contact the company that is using it and request that they sell it to you, or you can use a domain buying service from a firm like GoDaddy, which will contact the owners of your desired domain name. This service is approximately $70 per domain.
Choose a web host
Every website requires a host — a server where all of its data is kept and accessible to the public at all times. Because hosting your own website is likely too expensive for your small business, you’ll need to choose an external host.
You can choose one of two ways, depending on your budget. The less expensive option shared web hosting, entails sharing a server with other websites. Dedicated hosting is substantially more expensive, but it provides you with your own private server and eliminates the need to compete with other sites that could slow down your speed. Web hosting is included in certain web builder platforms’ monthly prices, such as Squarespace and Wix.
Here are some web hosting service options:
- 1&1 Ionos: This web hosting firm is well-known for its cloud hosting services, but it also provides other cloud-based services such as servers and site backup. Plans and capabilities vary, but most start at $15 per month.
- A2 Hosting: A2 Hosting provides shared and dedicated hosting services. For the first year, new clients can get a Lite hosting plan, which is adequate for some small enterprises, for as little as $3.91 per month.
- DreamHost: DreamHost offers three managed WordPress hosting plans: DreamPress, DreamPress Plus, and DreamPress Pro. The average monthly cost is $16.95.
If you’re seeking free website hosting, keep in mind that hosting a website is far from free for the hosting business.
As a result, companies may use alternative techniques to compensate for the free hosting, such as displaying banner adverts on your website.
Consider how well a host can answer queries about its server locations and reliability when selecting a host, according to Jim Cowie, former chief scientist of cloud-based internet performance provider Dyn.
“It’s a good idea to ask, ‘Can you show me how close you are to the big markets where my clients will be?'” Cowie stated. “Any competent hosting company should have the capability to offer you… performance measurements.”
As your company grows, you may discover that you need to switch to a different web host or even work with multiple providers to handle your website traffic and operations. Cowie suggested keeping a close eye on your site’s performance and the user experience your customers have with your website in order to determine your hosting requirements.
Build your pages
A good website is more than a static homepage. You’ll want to create multiple pages dedicated to different aspects of your business, such as a detailed catalog of your products or services, or a blog section for company updates. As for your overall website, make sure each page supports the site’s primary goal, has a clear purpose and includes a call to action (e.g., “learn more,” “sign up,” “contact us” or “buy this”).
A contact page, as your customers’ direct link to you, is one of the most important sections of a website, so include as much information as you can (your business’s phone number, email address and physical location, if you have one). It’s also a good idea to include information about the founding team or staff on an “about” page so customers can put real names and faces to your brand.
If your company does not already have a logo, employ a graphic designer to create one for you to use on your website, business cards, and social media profiles. This will assist your clients in swiftly and simply identifying your firm on the web.
Justin Zalewski, director of product design at innovation consultancy Studio Science, shared a few simple pointers to help you construct efficient, content-rich internet pages:
- Be specific about what your company does. Lead with a clear, short statement that summarizes what your company does. Within seconds of landing on your homepage, visitors should be able to comprehend what you do. A few well-written pages outperform dozens of poorly written ones.
2. Incorporate strategic calls to action. CTA buttons operate best when they correspond to the information on the page. A “purchase now” button, for example, makes sense on a product page, while a “contact us to learn more” button may be more relevant on the “about us” page. Similarly, a page with customer evaluations may include a button that directs the reader to the available plans and pricing.
3. Automate speed boosts. Set up as many automated speed boosts as possible. Installing the correct plugins for your content management system (CMS) will cache elements of your site so users don’t have to download anything more than once. WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache, which compresses files and allows visitors to navigate your site more rapidly, were recommended by Zalewski for WordPress users. If you’re not extremely computer knowledgeable, some of the more technical parts of caching and compressing data may necessitate the assistance of a web development partner.
4. Avoid using stock photographs. Tacky stock photography is the easiest way to reduce a fantastic site to mediocrity. If you want to put a photo of your actual team or workplace on your page, it’s better to use one of them.
Pheil also stated that high-quality product images improve sales, therefore invest in beautiful photography of the products or services you provide.
Construct your payment system (if applicable)
While this step will not apply to all business websites, organizations that want to provide clients the opportunity to pay online must integrate electronic payment systems with their websites. The most convenient method to accomplish this is to use e-commerce software or small business credit card processing solutions.
Many web servers have an in-house shopping cart or interface with e-commerce software. Conduct some research to ensure that you acquire a solution that is simple to use and adaptable enough to satisfy your demands today and in the future.
Test and publish your website
Before declaring your site live on the internet, ensure that it works in all major browsers, including Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. Examine each page and feature in each browser to confirm that images are displayed, links are correct, and the format is smooth. This will take some time, but the time you put in now will spare you from receiving future complaints from people who are unable to access particular features.
Check that your website appears properly on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. This step should not be missed, as Google and other search engines have transitioned to mobile-first indexing, which favors the performance of your website’s mobile version in search engine results.
Analytics software is another key component to include from the start. Setting this up before the website goes live allows you to iron out any bugs and organize a suitable setup, according to Shaoolian. Once the website is online, you may track page performance and use analytics to determine why a certain page is successful or unsuccessful.
“You can look at which of your marketing campaigns are generating the most conversions and study any analytics such as city, browser, and so on to get a sense of how your audience is interacting with your site,” Shaoolian explained. “If you… add this [after] the site goes live, you’ll miss out on vital data and won’t be able to determine which components of your site are successful or unsuccessful right from the start.”
Market your website on social media
Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest are the most effective ways to expand your audience reach and inform clients about what’s going on with your organization. When you update your website, share it on social media, but balance it with genuine, non-promotional participation.
Include connections to your social media accounts on your website as well. The footer or the auxiliary bar are the most frequent places to do this (the extra menu in the top right that often holds login or contact links). In our marketer’s guide, you can learn more about social media for business.
Invest in search engine optimization (SEO)
Submitting your website to major search engines, as well as implementing a solid SEO strategy across your site, will help direct potential leads to your page. According to Shaoolian, setting title tags, meta descriptions, and Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) that are relevant to your firm and characteristics of your sector will improve your search engine rankings for the products or services you’re attempting to advertise.
“Building relevant keywords into your content from the very beginning of your website, and having a strong focus on SEO from the beginning of your website launch, can help you create traffic early on,” he stated.
These crucial on-site SEO methods will help you increase your ability to rise up the ranks as you create your business website. (You can also explore off-site SEO strategies.)
- Select the appropriate keywords. Choose keywords that are related to your business and that your potential clients are looking for on the internet. Visit our SEO small business tools guide to find a solution that can assist you in identifying, analyzing, and tracking these keywords.
2. Create new content. Regularly writing on a blog, adding to your website, and upgrading your content all indicate to search engines that your site is relevant for the keywords you’ve picked. Choose topics that are both relevant to your business and exciting for your industry in order to establish yourself and your company as thought leaders in the field.
3. Include internal and external hyperlinks. Internal links are links on your website pages that lead to other pages on your site, whereas external links are links to other prominent, authoritative websites. Distribute these links around your website in a strategic manner. Make sure the connections make sense, suit the context, and add value to the reader’s experience; otherwise, linking may work against you.
Improve image quality
Compress photos so they don’t take too long to load on your site. Take the same approach with video, ensuring that any clips load quickly and do not slow down the overall performance of your site. The information of photos, such as tags and captions. These allow you to plug in your keywords and tell search engines what the images are about.
Increase the speed of your website
Pages should load as soon as possible; ideally, within a few seconds. To see if your site is operating optimally, utilize free site performance checkers such as Google’s PageSpeed Insights.
Keep your website updated
To keep people coming back to your website, update it frequently with blog posts about current industry events, new products and deals, and company news.
You should also check your software and all add-ons at least once a month to ensure they are up to date. According to Pheil, even if your website host’s security is excellent. If your software is out of date, it is vulnerable to hacking. If you don’t have the time, entrust the responsibility to a trusted employee or a freelance website manager.
Starting a website for your company is a low-cost investment. It can help you create trust and reach a larger consumer base than previous marketing methods might. You’ll never have to worry about “not existing” to your present and future clients if you maintain your website updated with new, current material and respond quickly to technological concerns.
FAQs about Built Company Website
How much does a business website cost?
According to Mark Brinker’s research, the typical cost of a small business website runs between $4,000 and $10,000. The reason for such a large range is due to the nature of the business. The quantity of effort that the business owner is ready to undertake. The cost difference between taking your own photos and hiring a professional photographer can be several hundred dollars. The same may be said about expert copywriting for site material, among other things.
How long does it take to create a business website?
Website development can take anywhere from a few days to several months. But if you’re looking for an average, we can turn to DreamHost. A major web host provider for small businesses, says the typical website development process takes between two and four months.
What should you include on your website?
Every company should contain essential information such as who they are, what they do, and how they can be contacted. Your website should also include the items or services you offer, as well as an easy mechanism for customers to make online transactions. Businesses may want to incorporate mission statements, reviews, testimonials, and a frequently updated blog with useful information about the firm and industry.