Small Business Website – Whether you’re a freelance photographer, run a hardware store, or run another form of small business, you need a good website to succeed. I know what it takes to create amazing and engaging business websites as a webmaster who has worked on over 100 small business websites constructing or promoting them.
Here are 10 critical stages to getting started and helping your small business website compete effectively in the online marketplace if you are trying to construct a new startup website or make your present site more effective.
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1. Choose an appropriate domain name.
Your domain name, often known as your internet address, is frequently the first thing visitors see when they visit your site. It is critical that it makes a good first impression for both usability and search engine optimization considerations (SEO).
Here are some pointers on how to come up with a good domain name:
Make it as simple to spell as possible. Avoid using slang, made-up phrases, or excessively esoteric terms.
Make it as brief as possible. It’s easier to remember and type accurately if it’s shorter.
Make sure you’re using the correct domain extension. Unless another extension, such as.gov,.edu, or.org, is more appropriate, try to make it a.com domain name (rather than.net,.co, etc.).
Numbers and hyphens should be avoided. They’re more difficult to recall, less elegant, and memorable than word-only domain names, and they’re more likely to be misconstrued when spoken aloud.
To promote future expansion, make the address as broad as possible. For example, Amazon.com is a significantly larger internet address than BooksOnline.com, allowing Amazon to sell almost any form of consumer commodity rather than only books, as it was intended.
Ascertain that it will be remembered. With so many websites on the internet, it’s critical that yours has a memorable name so that people remember how to find it in the future.
Look into the domain name. Look it up on Google to see if a comparable website URL already exists, then check USPTO.gov to make sure it doesn’t have any registered trademarks.
Check to see if the pricing is reasonable. Determine if you can afford to buy your preferred website address, as most good domain names are already occupied and must be purchased from the current owner.
Nonsensical names should be avoided. Choose a name that has meaning for users to understand what your company is about right away. Although Yahoo and Google are memorable brands, they were costly to brand, and your tiny business may not have the same resources.
Make a URL that is SEO-friendly. Try to come up with an SEO-friendly website URL that includes keywords and geo-location when possible, such as “www.LasVegasElectrician.com.”
2. Invest in a safe, scalable website hosting plan with excellent technical assistance.
A website host (also known as a website hosting provider) is a business that provides the technology and services required to access a website on the internet. You link your domain name to your hosting account so that when people type in your website address, they are taken to the website you have stored on your server.
Depending on the technology and support you choose, hosting services might cost anywhere from $2 to $100+ each month. When you buy a yearlong plan instead of a monthly one, you usually get a discount.
Here are some pointers on how to pick an excellent website hosting package:
Although a “shared server” hosting package can be had for as little as $2 per month, I would not recommend it. Shared hosting entails sharing a server and its resources with other customers, which can slow down your site’s performance. It’s also likely that if one of the other websites on your shared server is hacked, yours will be as well.
The most expensive choice is a “dedicated server” hosting plan, which can cost anywhere from $100 to $2,000 per month. However, it will ensure that your website performs at its best. A dedicated server plan means that the physical server machine is completely dedicated to your website; as a result, all of the resources are yours, and it is more secure than a shared hosting plan, as long as the technology is up to date. It is, however, significantly more expensive than most small enterprises are prepared to spend. This may be necessary once you have a high-performing site, but it is overkill for most early-stage and small firms.
A “virtual private server” (VPS) hosting plan, which gives you the best of both worlds, is usually the best compromise I recommend. The monthly fee ranges from $20 to $50, which is reasonable for the hosting services you will receive. A virtual private server (VPS) is a single system that has been partitioned to act as numerous machines, giving it the same affordability as shared hosting while still offering the same security and performance as a dedicated server hosting package.
If you encounter an issue, be sure your hosting business has phone and/or chat assistance so you can get help immediately. When a problem needs to be fixed right away, email support can take too long and become annoying. The best way to get help is by phone, however chatting is also a good option.
To access your server, you’ll need a user-friendly server interface like cPanel. Unless you can afford to employ a professional server administrator to help you, you don’t want to have to use terminal commands to examine and edit the contents of your server.
Check to verify what kind of server security the server you’re contemplating has in place. You’ll need to be able to connect to your server using Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) (SFTP). Your server’s contents should be backed up on a daily basis. Installing Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates should also be simple, requiring only one or two clicks. Check to see if the hosting business does frequent security checks. Your hosting business should, ideally, have a written security procedure that you can check to see how they maintain their servers secure.
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3. Put a clear description of your company in a prominent location.
It’s critical to let people know who you are and what you do right away on your small company website so they don’t get lost. Make sure your main homepage banner (also known as a “hero picture”) and subsequent banners are visual representations of your services, as well as a text snippet towards the top of the page that conveys who you are and what you do.
Additionally, make sure that “About Us” page links are easily available in both your main and footer navigation menus so that people can click them and learn more about your company.
4. Create and publish high-quality content on a regular basis.
Search engines value both amount and freshness of information, so make a plan to publish high-quality articles and/or blog posts on your own site as well as on sites that connect to yours. You must update your website with new and relevant material as regularly as possible if you want to rank well in search engine results and attract people to visit your site again and again.
In addition to static page content and articles, testimonials are a terrific type of material to provide on your website. Requesting client testimonials and then publishing them on your website is a terrific approach to add new, high-quality material to your website that will help your small business stand out.
Make sure your material is written in a tone that is appropriate for your business and that people will enjoy reading.
