September 2021 -

"How to Create My Own Website for Business", if you’re asking yourself that question you're joining Millions of fellow small business owners. The truth is that NOW Covid 19 has everyone scrambling for affordable small business website options!!! Although, the need was plain to see before the pandemic... the Statistics are Staggering and the ...numbers don't lie... Start with the Google stat below... more stats throughout this post!... tweet if you find them interesting~ 53.3% of all website traffic comes from organic search. (BrightEdge) Click To Tweet ....EVERY Business MUST OWN A Website ~ Conversely, learning how to build your own business website doesn't have to be Rocket-Science. In fact, even if you're wanting to make your site from scratch you can do that too. But, you knew a 🤣Big Butt was coming Right??? ....there are a few guidelines to follow, ignoring them could have you frustrated for WEEKS... Truthfully it's easy to do and You Can do IT!❗ Reading this post will help... Seriously, I've built a few for myself and others... *** Update... I just recently found a Super Simple Process, I'll share, be sure to read to the end. Let's Dive In Now since that's established, first we’ll discuss how you can easily build your own website for business, within a few hours. In fact, not just any small business website, but rather a corporate site that can boost sales, showcase your products and services, and can help your company's website display on the first page of Google. (High rankings take time; this won't happen overnight, however, starting off correctly will help tremendously!) Business Website Tips Secondly, you'll learn about one of the best website builders for small business beginners, website design ideas for business owners, and website content ideas for beginners. Lastly, you'll also break down one of the most overlooked areas of website development, which is strategic planning. Stick and stay because once you're finished reading this you'll be ready for Freddy. The truth is, building your website isn't as difficult as you may think, on the other hand, it’s more critical than you can imagine! Did you know Google Dominates Search Marketing 91.9% Click To Tweet How to Create Your Own Website for Business First things first, let’s start at the planning phase. When starting any endeavor, we should start with the end in mind. Building your small business website lacking long-term thinking will have you back to the drawing board within another few years. To emphasize, a well throughout plan should include your website design, content marketing, SEO optimization, and mobile-friendly features. As a matter of fact, not considering those elements is like building your dream house too small or without your desired features. 9 Steps to Building a Business Website: Choose a domain name Select an email address Pick website builder Select a template Add content Incorporate needed apps SEO optimized Confirm mobile-friendly Publish, monitor, and update #1 Choose a Domain Name Unsurprisingly, choosing your domain is the first critical element to building your business website. Your domain name should be unique to differentiate your business from your competitors. If you are branding yourself or a company name, then your process is easy. Conversely, choosing the wrong domain can make or break your business. Importantly, your URL (domain name) is the first impression of your business. It should be SEO optimized and, should be a “.com” extension. Listed are a Few Other Advantages: Keep it Short and Memorable Steer Clear of Numbers and Hyphens Make it Simple and Easy to Pronounce Make Sure It’s Easy to Type Opt for “Niche” Keywords That Reflect Your Website #2 Choose an Email Address Your email selection is very similar to picking your domain. The best email addresses are descriptive, easy to remember, and relevant. If you are branding yourself, rearranging your name or choosing a nickname would work. As an example: Info@PYTalkBiz.com the bottom line is to remember KISS... keep it silly simple. #3 Pick a Website Builder or DIY Fortunately, building a website is not as difficult as it once was. More compelling, we don’t have to know how to write code or any of the other complicated things that were once required. After all, if you choose to use a site builder, they are simple and easy to use. Conversely, they’re not as customizable. Plus, those platforms have add-ons. Therefore, you'll have to watch carefully because those add-ons can add up quickly. Listed are a few drag-and-drop website builders: BigCommerce Web.com Wix Alternatively, you can try a WordPress website which makes up 38% of all sites on the internet. As a matter of fact, Fortune 500 companies and news channels such as CNN Digital, Time, Enterprise, Vogue, NASA, Jay-Z, and others, all use WordPress. Why, WordPress is very Intrusive, Scalable, Customizable, and Easy to Use. #4 Select a Template Your next step to build your site is to choose a template or theme. If you are confused, no worries, I used to be as well. Similarly, choosing a theme is like selecting a floor plan when building a house. It’s a rendering of what your site will look like once built. Equally so, website builders and WordPress have plenty of templates to choose from. Notably, the templates/themes are customizable, which allows you to change almost every component or element. The photo below are examples of templates. Google process over 8.5 Billion searches Per Day Click To Tweet #5 Add Content Asking what you need on your website? ....Content. ***Note: you aren’t just writing anything. Rather, your content should be strategic. Explicitly, the content marketing strategy should have been considered during your business planning stage. In brief, your content will serve a few purposes. Undoubtedly, you are writing to add value to your visitors, display products, or services, or provide helpful resources. Additionally, you’re writing to please Mr. Google. I know, Google thinks they run the world. We all know girls run this Mother #$%^&!!!!...LOL!!! Business Website Content Suggestions: Plan what content you’ll cover Talk specifically to your demographic Know your target market pain points Establish your CTA (call-to-action) #6 Install WordPress Plugins or Apps Similarly, to phone apps, websites have apps and plugins. Although WordPress popularized plugins, they’re universal and there's one for everything. Equally important, plugins help to update, modernize, assist, or protect your website. I usually use WordPress because of those reasons. These plugins are easily updated via the admin section and email notifications are sent. Reading from the same book but on a different page, speaking of plugins, Yoast is the #1 Most popular SEO plugin. It’s designed to help you learn SEO. Although plugins are massively helpful, most are free. Nevertheless, there are a few that cost but are worth the money, especially if you‘re an SEO or site builder newbie! Yoast has a free and paid version, great for beginners. I use the free version. A few of the Most Common Plugins and Apps Yoast plugin-free plugins WP Optimizer-free plugins AMP Accelerated Mobile Pages -free plugins Redirection- free plugins WPX Hosting Social Shares - free plugins UpDraft Plus -free plugins Really Simple SSL -free plugins Google Analytics -free sign up #7 SEO Optimized Search engine optimization (SEO) is critical if you are interested in generating organic traffic. Sincerely, who doesn’t want to show up at the top of the SERPs (search engine ranking page)? This means that your website is displayed when your visitor types in their request. Not to confuse this with them typing in your specific URL and your site shows up. Surely, your site will show up if you type in your URL because it’s unique to you. On another note: Keyword research is vital at this point as well, finding your target market's exact keywords will improve your SEO. There are keyword research tools free and paid available. Click To Tweet As an illustration: There’s a big difference in search terms for pre-owned vs. pre-certified cars. Performing proper keyword research will help you to choose which term is easier to rank for. Another example, let’s say you sell refrigerator gaskets, your potential customer types in Google’s search bar, “where is the best place to buy refrigerator gaskets in Raleigh, NC”? When this happens, you'd want your business to show up… Right? The Gasket Guy website is #3. Now you understand why organic traffic is the highest converting traffic source. Those visitors have a need and aren’t just kicking tires, or looky-loos. They’re looking for a specific product at a particular location. YOU CAN'T beat organic traffic, that’s why SEO is vital. ***Note, SEO is also the slowest traffic generating source to get moving. Depending on your target market and keywords, it can take from 6 months – 2yrs or longer before reaching the first page of google. Click To Tweet For this reason, businesses spend thousands of dollars on SEO marketing services. Every business is trying to find practical ways to increase its website pageviews. Naturally, if you’re a DIY’er or have time, you can learn SEO. In fact, I did back in 2009, it took a minute but it wasn't hard. To learn more about how to improve “SEO” <- Click here. Luckily, today there are many more resources available, you can improve your skills with plugins, courses, and online resources. SEO is worth its weight in GOLD! Two other popular alternatives are paid ads and social media marketing, which you can incorporate while waiting for SEO rankings to kick in. #8 Confirm Mobile-friendly Times are changing and mobile search is leading the way. More of our customers are searching using their mobile devices than ever before. 50% of all eCommerce sales originate from a mobile device. Hmmm. What does that tell us; that our websites have to be mobile-responsive? Since knowing that our website must be mobile-friendly, one of the simplest ways is via a responsive design theme. A responsive website theme will automatically adjust the height, width, and resolution to fit various screen sizes. Keep in mind with a responsive design your content remains the same just the webpage adjusts to the mobile device. Couple that decision with choosing a top-notch hosting company and you’re cooking with grease. Small Business Website Design Tips for Beginners Don’t Use Flash Although Adobe stopped supporting flash over a year ago, some site owners still use it. None of our major internet browsers supports it, I.e., Chrome, Google, Safari, Mozilla, or Firefox. Responsive Design Template Responsive sites have better SEO quality. This allows Google to easily index and explore your content more efficiently regardless of the device type. Enable Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Wondering what are AMP pages? It's a process that speeds up the page load time. This framework decreases certain HTML and other languages to smaller data, which reduces page size and hence speed. Choose Top-notch Web Hosting Selecting first-rate web hosting is one of the little big things you can do. Unfortunately, many times when you're just starting out and you're trying to save money, "FREE hosting sounds GRREEEAT! What you don't know is that free hosting is usually shared hosting. Likened shared hosting to living in some apartment complexes, if your neighbors have bugs eventually, you will too. You may want to spend a little extra to ensure you get the best hosting possible. (Maybe another 20 bucks) Reduce images Sizing your images is paramount, for desktops and especially for mobile devices. Not only that but Google will punish/penalize you for large images. Using an image resizer is a plugin that EVERY website needs. Too large images 100% slows down your page speed on any platform. Lastly, large images' slow page speed, and slow-loading pages, hurt your SEO! Studies agree that pages that take longer than three seconds to load lose around 53% of mobile users. Click To Tweet Before moving on I think now is the perfect time to offer some recommendations based on my personal experience. Of the suggested products, I’m an affiliate of some of these but I think there're superb products and great prices including FREE! All in all, I think you’ll find them helpful and efficient. Your website instantly differentiates your business from your competitors. Getting this right could dwarf your competition. On the other hand, messing up can put a chokehold on your profits. To point out, if you lack the time to build your own website, you may want to consider a website builder or hire a web designer. Equally worth mentioning, throwing thousands of dollars to a web designer isn’t the answer either. To demonstrate, view digital marketers Garyvee or Neil Patel’s websites. Did you know that they get close to one million views per month, with an average aesthetic-looking website? Yes, they are superstar marketers now, but they started the same way we all started, at zero. Advantages and Disadvantages of a Small Business Website... ...is one of the most critical components of your marketing mix 88% of consumers who search for a type of business on a mobile device call or go to that business within 24 hours Click To Tweet Google algorithm is the same for everyone. You should be able to build or purchase a responsive, SEO-optimized website with all the bells and whistles for $1000-$1500, depending on your niche, maybe less. This includes your email autoresponder, plugins, forms, and SEO content creation. OK… recommendations: Webflow Empowers designers to build professional, custom websites in a completely visual canvas with no code; start for FREE… Yoast SEO - Absolute must-have, the free or paid version Short-Pixel - This cost only a few dollars but is an ABSOLUTE MUST-HAVE! SEMrush – Want to spy on your competitors? Here’s what the big-time marketers use. Superb for identifying your keywords, just about everything. Email Marketing Automation - Automate your follow-up messages, events, and sales and promotion. Build your email subscription list. WXP Web Host: Top-notch web hosting with minimum downtime. Google Analytics - Most marketers use this one (it’s FREE), furthermore it's compatible with many website builders. Website Design Ideas of Beginners Again, you don’t have to be a web-designer pro to build a website. On the flip side, you can be a website designer beginner and succeed. Notedly, by using the ideas in this post you can build a site that grabs Google and your customer’s attention. Simply stated, the prettiest website doesn’t always win. There are some butt-ugly sites that gain millions of site views per month. The easiest way to design your site, especially for beginners, color-blind people, or those who are less coordinated is to use a template or theme. As a matter of fact, you can look through 100’s of themes to get a general idea of what it's like. All in All, take into consideration your end goal. What is the main purpose of your website? 70% of small business websites lack a Call to Action (CTA) on their homepage Click To Tweet Is SEO Worth it for Small Business Websites Within the next few paragraphs, I'll share what I learned from running my SEO business 13 years ago. This is especially useful since Covid-19 has force-fed every business to get online and to make your website SEO and mobile-friendly. Included also are SEO, Target Marketing, Keyword Research, and a few other online marketing strategies that are critical to having an effective web presence. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Beginning with the story of my very first SEO client, a wedding photographer, whom I met online. (Cold Call) Click To Tweet "See what had happened was"!!! ....LOL!!!! My local SEO Business got started from a failed attempt with online marketing in 2006. Just as I was giving up, I noticed I inadvertently learned SEO. Thinking quickly, I decided to put up a quick website to test what I thought I had learned. BINGO! Long story, short. Yes, it worked! I learned SEO. So, my first thought was to help others. Being naive, I started calling businesses. Excitedly, sharing my newfound service. Boy, I'm all in explaining how local search engine optimization works and how I could help them achieve Google's first page rankings. My first rebuttal received was do you know how many times I've heard that? (me) For Real!!!! 🤔OK, But Auntie Em I can !!! Firstly, hunting for clients I came across some of the most beautiful wedding photos ever. One HUGE Problem, they were on the second page of Google. To clarify, why was I searching on Google's second page? Because I knew that the businesses that were on the second page wanted to be on the first page. 61% of users are unlikely to return to a site on mobile if they had trouble accessing it and 40% visit a competitor's site instead Click To Tweet Is SEO Important for Small Business In short, after a brief conversation with the wedding photographer, he hired me to perform SEO services. To translate, he wanted his website to show up on the first page of Google. In essence, when searchers typed wedding photographer, in his city his website would show up first. In a few days, his website went from the second page to the first page second position. Bam! (***it takes longer now...Google changed the rules) In this case, how much were my services worth to him?... Mind you, his wedding packages started at around $5000.00. The takeaway here is that having a web presence is vital, however, it must be properly optimized! Local SEO Website Optimization Components for Small Business Website Marketing Maintain Regular Website Check-ups SEO and Page Ranking… is Critical Choosing Highly Relevant Keywords Market Research the Secret Weapon Contact Marketing Tips Next lesson: .... dealing with small business websites. Since Post Covid statswere made available at the end of 2021. They gave scientific data that business websites are VITAL!!!! Recent research shows that businesses that incorporated a hybrid system or the BOPIS (buy online, pick up in-store) were the companies or retailers that thrive and /or survived, during the Covid pandemic. Optimizing your business website isn’t hard, this is easy for me to say now. Comparatively, back in the day when I was tucked away in what I called the “dungeon” trying to start my online business, that was a horse of a different color. Additionally, there were times when I wanted to snatch the computer cord from the wall, violently throw it out the window, and surrender to self-pity. LOL!!! Today your web presence plays an important role in today's small business marketing mix. Average smartphone conversion rates are up 64% compared to desktop conversion rates Click To Tweet In contrast, I read a staggering statistic that in today's technological age over 40% of all businesses don't have a website. I find that hard to believe in today's tech environment. Despite computers' vast functionality such as: A convenient way to display products and services. An easier way to educate clients or customers. One of the quickest ways to inform customers of upcoming sales and other promotions. Portrays a professional business image. Offers potential additional income stream, with less overhead. Furthermore, having a small business website increases your business credibility. This even helps when applying for business credit or other business services. A professional-looking website gives the perception that you own a legitimate business. Conclusion: Building a business website doesn’t have to be hard. However, it's a must-have, the new norm. If you're committed to having a complete marketing mix. Then setting -up your website according to the basic best practices is surely a good start. Following the website design tips for beginners, will indeed place your company site in front of hundreds of raving fans. There weren't any secrets within this post, we just provide specific steps that will without a doubt help you to build your own business website, get indexed, and ranked in Google. Nearly 8 in 10 customers would stop engaging with content that doesn't display well on their device Click To Tweet Now that we’ve made it clear why it’s necessary to build your business website and expressed how imperative it is to make it mobile-friendly, it’s time for you to act. Recap: Choose your URL- Short and Simple Select Drag and Drop or WordPress Website Builder Perform Keyword Research Pick a Responsive Template or Theme Add Content SEO Optimized for Desktop and Mobile Device Choose an Email Autoresponder Incorporate Google Analytics Now it's time to hear from you If we missed key pointers, let us know Please share your comments below now. Enjoy the article? Please link and share... To Your Success! P.Y. Related Articles How to Improve SEO Rankings Small Business Webdesign Examples 5 Undeniable Content Page Marketing How to Create My Own Website for Business