10 Key Steps To Building A Great Small Business Website

10 Key Steps To Building A Great Small Business Website

Whether you are an independent business owner like a photographer, event planner, Makeup artist a hardware store owner, Interior designer, or you have some other type of small business, a good website is essential to the success of your company. As a webmaster who has worked on creating or marketing 100 small business websites, I know what it takes to build beautiful and attractive business websites.

If you want to build a new startup website or make your current site more efficient, here are 10 key steps to get started and help your small business website compete more effectively in the online marketplace.

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Read Top 10 Things Every Business Website Must Have

1.Find a good domain name

Your domain name, also known as your website address, is usually the site of your site. It is important to look good for usability, as well as optimize search engines (SEO)

Here are some tips to come up with the right domain name:

  • Make it easy to spell. Try not to use slang, artificial, or esoteric words too much.
  • Keep it as short as possible. In short, it is easier to remember and type well.
  • Use the appropriate domain extension. Try to always create a .com domain name (unlike .net, .co, etc.) unless it is appropriate to use another extension, such as .gov, .edu, or .org.
  • Avoid numbers and halves. They are hard to remember and they are very less beautiful and memorable than just domain names, and they may be misunderstood when a domain name is called.
  • Make the address wider to facilitate future growth. For example, Amazon.com is a wider website address than BookOnline.com and allows Amazon to sell better every type of buyer instead of just books, as it was originally intended.
  • Make sure it is memorable. As there are so many websites on the internet, it is important that your website name is stuck so that people remember how to find it in the future.
  • Research the domain name. Google it to see if the same website address already exists online, then search for USPTO.gov to make sure it doesn’t have any registered trademarks.
  • Check that the price is right. Find out if you can buy your desired website address for the right price because most domain names are taken and will need to be purchased from the current owner.
  • Avoid senseless words. Choose a word that conveys meaning so users can quickly know what your business is. Yahoo and Google are popular, but very expensive branding and your small business may not have the same budget.
  • Create an SEO-specific URL. If necessary, try to come up with an SEO-specific website address that includes keywords and geo-location; for example, “www.LasVegasElectrician.com.”

2.Buy secure and awesome website hosting with good technical support

A web host (or sometimes referred to as a website hosting provider) is a company that provides the technology and services needed for a website to be viewed online. You link your domain name to your hosting provider so that when users visit your website address, they are shown your website that you store in your hosting account.

Hosting services can cost anywhere between $ 2 to $ 100 + per month, depending on the type of technology and support you choose. You can get an additional discount if you buy an annual plan as opposed to a monthly plan.

Check this are some guidelines for choosing the Best website hosting plan:

  • Although you can get a “shared server” hosting plan for about $ 2 a month, I would just advise on this. Shared hosting means you share the server with its resources with other customers, which can make your site work harder. Also, if one of the websites on your shared server is hacked, your website may also be infected.
  • A “dedicated server” hosting plan is very expensive – the cost can range from about $ 100 to $ 2,000 a month – but it is possible it can make your website more efficient. Having a dedicated server plan means that the portable server is fully dedicated to your site; therefore, all resources are yours and are much safer than the shared hosting plan, as long as the technology works well. However, it is more expensive than most small businesses tend to pay for themselves. Once you have a site that does very well, this may be what you need, but it goes beyond the basics and small businesses.

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  • The easiest I recommend is usually a “private hosting” (VPS) system that offers the best of both worlds. Costs range from $ 20 to $ 50 a month, less expensive hosting services you will receive. A VPS is a single server divided to work as multiple servers, it is offering the same capabilities in shared hosting, with the same security and functionality as a dedicated server plan.
  • Make sure your hosting company has phone and/or chat support so you can get immediate help if you have a problem. Email support can be very long and frustrating when an issue needs immediate attention. Phone support is great, but chatting works well too.It needs to be easy to use a server interface like cPanel to access your server. You do not want to use the last commands to view your server’s content and make changes unless you can pay the server manager to help you.
  • Check to see what kind of server security is available on the server you are considering. You will want to access your server via Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP). There should be daily backups made for your server content. There should also be an easy, one or two ways to apply Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates. Make sure the participating company does regular security maintenance. Ideally, your hosting company has a published security protocol that you can review to know how to keep their servers secure.

Other popular website hosting companies include:

  • Hostinger
  • GoDaddy
  • The dream
  • Bluehost
  • InMotion
  • HelpGround

3.Clearly show a clear description of your business

It is important to let people know they need to understand who you are and what you are doing right away so that they do not feel confused when visiting your small business website. Make sure your main homepage banner (also known as “hero image”) and the following banners are visual presentations of your services, and that you have an introductory text near the top of the page that explains who you are and what you do.

Additionally, make sure both your navigation and foot menus have links to the “About Us” page that are easily accessible so people can click them and learn more about your business in-depth.

4.Use the best content management system

A content Management System (CMS) is a software program or application used to create and manage digital content. A good CMS will help you maintain your website, and you do not need a lot of technical knowledge to use it. You should choose a CMS that is tailored to your specific needs; different systems are used for a variety of reasons, such as user-friendliness, expansion, and budget.

The following are some popular programs with descriptions of their strengths and weaknesses.

WordPress: The WordPress platform is the most famous CMS software in the world. It has a large active support community and many useful plugins to extend the functionality of your site. (And if you can’t find a plugin that does what you want, it’s easy to find a WordPress builder that can make one for you!) WordPress is also free and easy to install. Most website developers know it so it’s not hard to find a person or agency that can work on your site. I generally recommend that small businesses use WordPress to create their own websites, due to their flexibility and flexibility.

It should be noted, however, that WordPress’s biggest weakness is security — because it is so popular, hackers are targeted. Your WordPress site needs to be kept safe so we don’t forget. Also, it’s hard to protect every third-party plugin, so keeping your WordPress site secure should be an ongoing commitment using a variety of advanced methods (to see if your plugins have been updated in the last few months, make sure it’s a plugin provided in the official WordPress site, removes unused plugins immediately, etc.).

Drupal: Drupal is another popular CMS. It offers many of the same benefits as WordPress, including flexibility, ease of use, and a large community of support. Most notably, it is a much safer CMS than WordPress (safe from malicious activity); however, it does not have many plugins or theme options, which makes it not very convenient. For many years, the White House website (Whitehouse.gov) was run by Drupal, but it has since changed to WordPress, which we still use today.

Joomla !: Another popular CMS is Joomla! Out of the box, it has better SEO, security, and multilingual capabilities than WordPress; however, with the help of a few plugins, WordPress exceeds the power of Joomla!

Squarespace: Squarespace is a monthly or annual subscription service that makes creating websites and blogs easier to find “drag and drop”. Includes website building, upgrades, software storage, metrics, domain name per year acquisition, SSL security, 24/7 support, and unlimited bandwidth and storage all in one package. It is especially suitable for creators and provides you with top design templates. If you are on a tight budget, you need a simple and good site, but you can afford a website designer, this is a great service for you.

Squarespace is a much smaller learning curve rather than WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla !, but it doesn’t have many extension options. However, if you have little or no technical knowledge and are looking for a quick and easy way to install a website, S Squarespace is the best option.

Wix: Wix is ​​very similar to Squarespace but very useful. It offers monthly, but not annual subscriptions and includes the same features. Wix is ​​also a drag and drop builder — you can drag and drop elements anywhere on the page; by comparison, Squarespace is more structured where you can drag and drop pages. The learning curve for using Wix is ​​much shorter than Squarespace, so if you need to publish the site quickly, this might be your best option.

Wix has a lot more templates than Squarespace to choose from, but if you choose a template, you should stick to it or be forced to rebuild your site completely. With Squarespace, you can change your template at any time without having to rebuild the entire site.

5.Choose a good e-commerce platform

If you plan to sell goods and/or services through your website, you will need the right technology to do so. (If you are not selling anything right now, you may want to consider doing so because e-commerce can increase your profits.) If you decide to allow users to interact with you online, and you will need to choose the right platform for your business model.

Here are some popular small commerce platforms:

WooCommerce: WooCommerce is one of the world’s most popular commerce platforms – it can turn your WordPress website into an online store. Like WordPress, there are many plugins available, and they attach to WordPress, making them extremely flexible. There are many free and advanced themes built for WooCommerce. (As a rule, it is best to use a premium theme from a reputable developer because it will provide better security and support.) If you are not a tech professional, you will need a WordPress developer to help you set it up and use it. WooCommerce also offers the highest levels of capabilities and growth that your small business may need.

Shopify: Shopify is a cloud-based e-commerce platform that allows you to create and customize an online store, and manage products, inventory, payment, and shipping. It’s not a WordPress extension like WooCommerce — it’s a stand-alone platform hosted on a Shopify server — so if you have the main website, your e-commerce site will basically be different from that. You can link to your Shopify account from your regular website built with WordPress, Drupal, Wix, etc. unless your main website has a Shopify integration plugin.

The to Features include in this platform unlimited products, unlimited bandwidth, fraud analysis, discount codes, reports, and much more. The main advantage of Shopify is that you do not need an engineer to set up a store, and everything in the backend is already set up for you when you sign up. Too bad you don’t have as much control or flexibility with your store as you would with WooCommerce.

Shopify Plus: Shopify Plus is Shopify Plus, but with a high level of customization, multiple staff accounts, and global e-commerce options. It also has a high level of support. However, all of this obviously comes with high subscription costs, and it still doesn’t have all the flexibility options like WooCommerce.

Business Squarespace: Squarespace has an e-commerce registration option, so if you have chosen Squarespace to build your site and have very simple e-commerce requirements, you can choose this route. Business Squarespace charges a transaction fee, but this can be overcome by upgrading your subscription to a basic online store. Includes free domain, SSL security, SEO, abandoned cart recovery, discounts, real-time network deployment, and more. However, it has been noted that it is not as easy to use as Shopify. And like Shopify, it’s just as flexible as WooCommerce.

Wix: Wix actually has an easy-to-use Shopify extension. You will need to upgrade your Wix account and sign up for Shopify to use it.

GoDaddy Online Store: Godaddy has a new independent commerce registration platform that is easy to set up and use. Very little technical information is required to launch your store via GoDaddy Online Store. Templates are simple and clean and can be customized. Features include online marketing and SEO tools, social media integration, appointment bookings, SSL security, fast page loading, and more.

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6.Create an attractive, memorable, and engaging user interface

Make sure the web interface for small businesses leaves a good impression of driving results. You can do this by using the following suggestions:

  • Use beautiful graphics and easy-to-read fonts.
  • Make sure your graphics are compressed and designed for quick uploads. If your website is slow, search engines like Google will penalize your position.
  • Research the competition to see how they build and use their websites; use the same features that will work for your small business website.
  • Research your target audience to see what they want from your site and make it easier for them to achieve it.
  • Stay on the product throughout your website design.
  • Create an accurate navigation system that allows users to get to the pages they need quickly.
  • Publish contact information that is easily accessible.
  • Enter the explicit call to action (especially the “buy now” buttons).
  • Create custom pages on small business websites, such as:
    • Home
    • About Us
    • Products / Services (with captions and visuals)
    • Map (for SEO purposes)
    • Management team
    • contact us
    • Terms of use (an online contract that governs how users can use your site)
    • Privacy Policy
    • Additional pages are associated with your specific small business
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7.Optimize your small business website with search engines

SEO is a collection of practices that you use on your website to ensure that search engines target and rank your website well and show it to search engine users. When your website is “cracked” by search engines, it competes with websites with similar content. The better your website design and content, the higher your ranking will appear on search engine results pages.

SEO mainly includes the following practices:

  • Keyword research and implementation
  • Appropriate website code
  • Fast loading speed
  • Security and installation of SSL certificate; SSL is a standard security technology so that ensures that data transferred between web servers and browsers remains confidential
  • Having an easy-to-use site
  • The presence of high-quality backlinks (links to external websites with related content) that lead to your site
  • Having lots of great reviews online (Google, Yelp, Facebook, etc.)
  • You use internal links throughout your site to keep people clicking and reading
  • You are using social media to link to your site (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.)

Search Engine Optimization is a very important continuous process that can tell the difference between appearing on the first page of search engine results (which resulted in a large amount of free content on your site) or on page 300 (which does not produce traffic).

8.Constantly create and publish quality content

Both quantity and content are important for search engines, so it’s important to create a quality publishing system and/or blog posts posted on your site and on external sites linked to your site. If you want to get more out of search engine results and encourage people to come back to your site more often, you will need to update your website with new and relevant content as often as possible.

In addition to the static page articles and content, the excellent content you will post on your website is proof. Ask for proof from your customers and publish.

9.Install webmaster tools

Use key data to help you analyze traffic performance and site performance by installing Google Analytics and Google Search Console (both recommended by Google Tag Manager), and Bing Webmaster tools. These all tools can be used to track the following types of information:

  • Daily, weekly and monthly visitors to your site
  • Number of views on each page of your website
  • “Bounce rate” —a percentage of users who come to your site and leave after looking at just one page (Google’s algorithms give you the highest rates on websites with the lowest rate, in the sense that visitors spend more time on the site and find it valuable.)
  • Average time spent on site by visitors
  • Crawl errors on your site (errors search engines found on your site in sewing content)
  • Broken links to the site
  • Keywords lead users to your site
  • Backlinks to your site
  • Time to download a Web page
  • Some information that can help you improve your SEO

10. Implement a website maintenance plan

The website should not be created and allowed to grow. In order to have an effective website that fits well with search engines and does not go into gaps, you need to make sure it is well maintained.

Here are some tips for creating a small business web hosting plan:

  • Check Webmaster tool data at least once a month and have significant errors emailed to you in real-time.
  • Use traffic data to learn more about your audience to take better care of yourself.
  • Use performance data to configure and correct alerts and errors.
  • Make sure all software is up-to-date.
  • Run a security scan to determine if your website is clean of malware and has not been stolen.
  • Use the “separate test” to see if a certain variety of your website is helpful; for example, if you are selling a product, you may have two versions of a particular landing page with different images and names – the split test allows you to see which version has the highest conversion rate.
  • Follow my advice on SEO (see point # 7), and continue publishing quality content (see point # 8).
  • Find the best and most effective ways to market your business online.
  • Let website users give you feedback about your site.
  • Continue to check your competition from time to time to see what they are doing with their online presence and see if what they have done can work for you.
  • Make sure your website is backed up in multiple ways at least once a day and at least after 10 days.

The conclusion

As you can tell after reading this article, creating a great website for small businesses may not be as easy as you first thought. However, if you follow the steps outlined in this article, your small business will have a much better chance of success in the online marketplace.

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