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.