Your website is the most effective marketing and sales tool you dispose of, and you can create a beautiful one in a few simple steps. It will engage visitors and attract potential clients. This article explains the process.
A Domain Name
It starts with choosing a unique domain name for your website. It should match your professional or business name. This affects your search ranking and keeps your branding consistent.
The right name makes all the difference. It will increase the number of people who find your site and potentially convert if chosen right.
Tips to Brainstorm Domain Names
- Include relevant keywords
- Make sure it’s easy to spell.
- Keep it short so it’s easy to remember
- Avoid numbers, hyphens, acronyms, abbreviations
- Use .com or another typical top-level domain
- Make sure it’s not already taken
As a small business, you’re probably on a budget. Buying a domain from someone else can be costly. If your domain ending in .com is taken, getting the same one with .net would be more cost-effective.
You can turn to a domain name generator if you get stuck.
Register Your Domain
After choosing the name, sign up with a registrar. Ownership costs around $15 a year. Domain registration isn’t the same as hosting. You still need to find a hosting provider to build your website, including the design. You could register with a provider who offers hosting, registration, and design to help you create a website to die for.
Wix, WordPress, and Squarespace are reliable all-in-one options if you don’t have any design or coding experience. If you opt for different companies to take care of the design and manage web hosting, look for a provider who offers an SSL certificate, a free domain, or tech support. The certificate is a big plus because it protects personal data and enables a secure connection. It’s looked on favorably by visitors and search engines alike.
All-in-one services tend to offer all of these features today, but there’s no guarantee. Before buying a plan, make sure the provider has them.
Integration features are essential to consider. If your web host doesn’t offer any, consider design programs like Adobe Creative Cloud or Canva. People create designs on these platforms and then integrate them into their sites.
Organize Your Content
When it comes to content organization, there are many options to choose from. As a bare minimum, you need a homepage, an informative About Us page, a product or services page, and a contact page. The homepage is the most important one as the first page people see. An excellent homepage will take you far as the central hub of your business website. It should capture their attention and explain what your business does. Use legible font, appealing graphics, calls to action, and concise and clear descriptions.
The About Us section shares how your business came to be. Draw attention to your values, mission, and achievements. You can add some information about the team.
If you integrate an e-commerce platform or online scheduling platform, you’ll drive your bottom line.
The contact page should have a form, addresses, emails, phone numbers, and social media accounts. Add business hours if it fits your business.
Unique content will help grow a community by positioning you as an expert in your sector or niche. You can include videos, blog posts, podcasts, and even case studies. This content will also help your SEO and increase the number of visitors to your site.
Optional Pages
You might want to include a FAQ section and testimonials. Give answers to some of the most common questions about your products or services. This will help reduce the number of support tickets and calls you get and increase the trust in your brand.
Testimonials will enhance your credibility. Make a page with positive reviews of your business. If any media mentions your company, include that in a small press coverage section.
Optimizing for Search Engines
Use relevant keywords throughout your pages and posts. Real SEO experts are hard to come by, and their services aren’t cheap, but they’re worth the investment. It’s a fine line between underusing keywords and coming off as spammy.
Your readers or customers will appreciate valuable content. If you include a blog, the posts should sound like an expert wrote them.
Enable browser caching and optimize images to keep your website’s speed as high as possible. High speed will also help your ranking in search engine results.
Make sure your content and design work equally well on desktop and mobile devices. Around half of all web traffic comes from smartphones.
Test Before Publishing
Before you publish your site:
- Read through your content to make sure it’s free of errors.
- Remove filler content from your template, check for broken links, and test the site across different browsers. You can monitor how it performs by connecting it to Google Analytics.
Once it’s gone live, share it with friends and include it on your social networks.