Creating a Website for Your Small Business: 4 Steps

Whether you’re a freelance editor, own a home-based bakery or sell products online, a strong web presence is essential for your business’s success. An engaging website gives your business a 24/7 online presence—meaning customers can always find you, even after business hours. 

What’s more is that, it cuts down advertising costs; social media platforms and tools like Google and AdWords can help increase business exposure and ultimately drive organic traffic to your site.

If you’re looking to build a captivating website for your startup, here’s our step-by-step guide to getting started:

1. Determine the purpose of your website

Your website is like an extension of your business card; it provides information about the nature of the business and the services you offer. Whether your site is fairly static (simply provides company details) or a complex e-commerce website, the most important part is to display what your company does on the home page in plain terms! Your customers shouldn’t have to scour the site to find out if your company offers the services they require. 

When first setting up your website, visualize the user experience; the users should be able to grasp the focus of your business right away, and this focus should be reinforced as the customers navigate through the website.

2. Pick a domain name

A website’s domain name—the site’s URL—is one of the most important factors. It should be descriptive but also easy to remember. Try to avoid customer confusion—steer clear of acronyms, abbreviations and numbers if possible. Consistency is a key part of branding, and if your domain name differs from your company name, customers may have a hard time locating your site.

You’ll also need to decide a top-level domain (TLD)—the suffix that comes after the “dot” in your website name, such as, .net, .biz, or .me. However, newer TLDs are filling up just as quickly as the domain names, so business owners have to start getting creative with the names.

Confirm your domain name’s availability through domain registrars like Wix, GoDaddy or Web.com

3. Choose a web host

A web host is a remote location—a server—where web pages are stored and made available to visitors at all times. As a small business, hosting a website may be too large of an expense, so you’ll have to look for an external host.

You have the option of either sharing a server with other websites through a shared web host or opt for dedicated hosting. Dedicating hosting requires you to invest in a private server; however, it provides exceptional speed since you won’t be competing with other sites.

In a nutshell, consider the server location, reliability and  your budget, when choosing a web host for your site. 

1. Build your web pages

Look for a template or web design that is engaging and easy to navigate, yet consistently supports the main focus of your business. Create multiple web pages dedicated to different aspects of your business— for instance, a detailed catalog page—and make sure each one includes a call to action—e.g., learn more, contact us or sign up.

If you’re looking for third-party services that can provide innovative and custom web designs, get in touch with the highly skilled web designers at EX² Outcoding. They also provide top-notch software development services, nearshore web development, mobile development and IT staff augmentation services.

Mobile Apps Are Transforming Businesses in The Digital World—Here’s All You Need to Know

Companies have moved on from designing mobile-friendly websites to engage with customers. In recent times, businesses are more interested in developing specialized mobile applications, due to the multitudinous benefits they offer.

Why mobile apps are becoming so important

In today’s fast-paced digital world, users demand an accessible, customized, and fast web experience. Mobile apps no longer provide businesses an added advantage; they’ve become a necessary feature to remain competitive in the market.

Mobile apps offer consumers a high level of convenience and ease. They also allow brands and marketers to engage effectively with their audiences via push messages and notifications.

Here’s how mobile apps are transforming businesses in the digital world: 

 

Improved and Personalized Communication

Mobile apps allow businesses to communicate with customers much more effectively. Using chat features, they can get a real-time response, along with round the clock customer support using virtual assistants. 

Moreover, it also enables businesses to analyze real-time data to send customers personalized push notifications or messages, informing them about the latest discounts and promotions in their products or services.

Brands can also wish customers on special occasions such as their anniversaries, birthdays, and festive holidays, to develop stronger relationships and provide them with a better and more customized experience.

Convenient and Secure Payment

Mobile apps also serve as convenient and secure methods of payment, allowing financial transactions to be performed with a tap of a button. Using virtual wallets, customers can easily make payments without having to log in to their bank account.

This can be particularly useful considering the fact that a lot of people don’t have credit cards or are skeptical about using them on a third-party website. 

You’ve probably seen people waving their smartphones over a machine instead of swiping a credit card. Or you might be the one using your smartphone over a device. These virtual wallets are cropping up everywhere.

Integrated Location-Based Services

Mobile apps help companies market their offerings and connect with customers on a real-time basis using GPS. This helps them to deliver more relevant content, which is beneficial for both the brand and consumers.

Location-based services are heavily used by businesses in different ways. For example, the famous ride-sharing app, Uber, heavily relies on GPS to sustain their operations as the rider can share their live locations to drivers.

Final words

These are only a few of the many advantages of using mobile apps. By integrating advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), mobile apps have the potential to completely revolutionize the digital world and provide an unparallel user experience.

If you want to create an efficient, well designed mobile app, contact EX² Outcoding. Headquartered in San Jose, Costa Rica, they are a nearshore outsourcing company that provides high-quality mobile app development services to our clients. They can design a functional and highly responsive mobile app for your business. To find out more, call at +1 800 974 7219 ext. 202 or visit their website.