In today’s world, a website is one of the most essential tools you can have when running a business. It can be a daunting prospect, though; setting up a website isn’t something that most people do every day, and it can be difficult to work out where and how to begin. This useful guide on how to create a website for your business should give you some hints and tips on what to do and where to get help if you need it.
Your Website’s Purpose
The very first thing you will need to do when setting up a business website is to decide what its purpose is going to be. Is it just for information purposes so that people can see you have an online presence, or will it be the major selling point of your business with an ecommerce store that brings in some, most, or even all of your revenue? Knowing which one you want your website to be will make a big difference in the design, layout, and content of the site once it is done. Although it is relatively easy to add to a website once it is published, it is far better to get it exactly as you want it right from the start – this helps people form a good opinion of you and your company.
Choose Your Hosting Company
There are many different types of web hosting available, and you can read more about them online. The web host is where your website will be held remotely, allowing visitors to arrive at it every time they want and need to. Which web host you pick will depend on how many visitors you expect, for example, as well as which software you’re using to create your site. It may be wise to start off with a smaller, less expensive package, for example, and then upgrade if you find that your visitor numbers are higher than expected. With a good web hosting company this should not be a problem, and the flexibility of whichever one you choose should be a useful factor in your decision.
What Features Do You Want?
So you have the host and the idea, you have the domain name and the software. Now you need to think about what additional features you want on your website. This will usually start with finding the right template. It’s far easier to choose a readymade template and change it to suit your purposes than to try to create your own; it takes a lot of skill and knowledge of the web design sector to do this, plus it takes a lot of time. When you’re starting your own business you’ll be busy doing many other things; web design probably won’t feature. If you do want a bespoke template, then you can hire a web designer to do it for you. After the template is organized, you should decide on what other features you want on your site. Do you want a guestbook, a contact form, a visitor counter, an online store, or anything else that is going to make your business be more successful?
Organization
When you have everything else in place, it’s time to think about organizing your website to ensure it is as attractive and user-friendly as possible. Organization starts with how you are going to place the different pages and which pages will link to one another. A sitemap should also be designed to help things along. However, organization also means ensuring that absolutely everything is as you want it to be. So you will want your logo to appear on your website, for example. The starting point when it comes to organization, however, has to be your menu system. You will always need a home system, but what else do you want to include? What about submenus? Are you going to want to add anything at a later date and if so do you have room for it? If you aren’t careful and don’t think about how these are going to be organized, then it can get very confusing not just for you and anyone involved in the design of the website, but for visitors too. If a visitor can’t navigate your site with ease, they will go somewhere where they can, and that could very easily be your competition.
Your Content
Content can often be the thing that is the hardest to deal with when it comes to creating your business website. It needs to be interesting and be written in the tone of the business; serious, funny, light-hearted, factual and so on. It also needs to be accurate, informing people about what it is you do, what you see, and how you operate. No matter what you’re writing on your website, from your contact details to your blog, it should all be considered part of your marketing and advertising. This is why it can sometimes feel daunting; get it right and customers will be drawn to you. Get it wrong, and they will look elsewhere for a message they can understand and get behind more easily.
Images
The text is just one aspect of your website’s content; images are also extremely important. Which images you can use will depend on the template you choose. If it is already rather busy, then your web images may not have much of an impact, so this will be something you need to consider. If you are selling products online then it is important to have images of them for customers to see; they are highly unlikely to buy something that they have never seen a picture of. Other images could include portrait shots of your team. This can help with gaining trust from your clients and customers and allows everyone to put a face to a name. Infographics are another handy type of image to use because they can do a lot of explaining much more easily than text alone ever could. This means your processed and company values can quickly and definitively be detailed and explained.