In the modern world with the internet at the fore, no business can exist without a great website that allows customers or clients to clearly see what they are offering. However, many of us are not technologically minded and would not know where to start when it comes to building a website. Thankfully, it has never been easier and with these simple steps, you can make a great website for your business.

Choose a Domain Name

This is a very important decision because it will be the first contact that a potential client will have with your business. You can choose any domain name you like as long as it hasn’t already been taken, but try and think of something snappy that perfectly describes your business. You want it to stay in the head of your customers for as long as possible. You will also need to choose a suffix, .com being the most common, but you can also use .net or a country-specific domain such as .co.uk. Once you have decided on your name and suffix you can purchase it through a domain registrar.

Choose a Host

As a small business, it will probably be far too expensive for you to host your own website so you will need to find a host. You can use a shared host, which means that other people’s websites will be stored on the same server, but you run the risk of slower traffic at peak times. The advantage though is that it is very cheap, so ideal for a startup business. The alternative is to have a dedicated host server, which will guarantee your speeds but cost more. It is best to let your website grow organically and then when it drives sufficient traffic you can have it hosted on its independent server.

Build Your Website

This is where things start to get interesting because you can start to build your website and personalize its appearance and content. Many firms can do this for you, but they can be expensive. If you are just starting your business it is much better to save those pennies and use a free website builder such as Weebly. It is incredibly easy to use with most of the steps self-explanatory and it has excellent SEO capabilities so you will find that your website rises quickly to the top of search engine rankings. You want to include as much information as possible, but it also needs to be clear and easily navigable.

Market Your Website

Once your website is built you need to market it so that traffic starts to arrive. Aleksander from BrandLume digital marketing solutions suggests that you hire a firm to handle all of your marketing initiatives. This means that you will have a presence on all of the main social media sites. They will also help to review the content of your website to ensure it has enough keywords to be picked up by search engine algorithms, so you are building in an extra layer SEO into your website. The other beauty of outsourcing your marketing is that you can spend more time concentrating on your actual business, which is fundamental at the beginning of your journey.

Maintain Your Website

There is no point in spending countless hours building your website if you’re just going to stand back and admire it. You need to be updating it and maintaining it on a near-daily basis as the digital world never sleeps. Search engine algorithms are always improving, so you need to ensure that you are still relevant in their eyes. It is also important to update the content of your website by posting blogs and writing about industry events so that your business appears at the forefront of your industry.

As we have discovered building your own website needn’t be a daunting task if you do some research and follow these simple steps. It is important to choose your domain name carefully so that it sticks in the head of potential customers and describes exactly what your business does. You then need to decide how your website will be hosted, and if you are a new business it makes sense to have this done on a shared server to cut costs. You can then begin to design and write content for your website using a free design tool and then you are ready to employ a digital marketing firm to drive SEO and traffic to your site. If you follow these tips you will have a successful website that helps drive the productivity of your business.

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