Small Business Website – Guide For Business Owners

It’s time to move your business online. Before you start, you need to do research.

Creating the right small business website involves selecting the right web design company to partner with. Though some of these steps you may be able to do on your own, it never hurts to have an experienced and expert web design on hand to solicit advice from and help guide you. Setting up the ultimate business website begins first with ensuring the basics are covered. Browse through this guide and learn a little about the mechanics that go into building out a business site.

Registering A Domain

The first step to setting up a small business website is to buy and reserve the domain name. In order to keep the domain name reserved for your website. Do you already have a name for your business? check the domain availability to make sure that it hasn’t been taken and purchase it. You will need to renew the domain every year.

Many small business owners choose their business’ name for their domain. Ideally, you want to think about how customers are expecting to reach you online. They’re either going to connect via social media accounts, enter your domain in directly, or use search engines to reach it. Selecting a domain name that is relevant is one of the most important choices in the early stages of building a business site, affecting long-term success in the online marketplace.

Maximizing domain privacy

When you purchase a domain name for your business site, the personal information you submit alongside it is entered into a registry that is openly accessible. Without domain privacy, anyone can find information about a website owner (name, address, phone number) Therefore, when buying a domain name, it is important to protect your privacy and ensure your personal information does not show up anywhere it shouldn’t.

In many cases, by exposing contact information openly, you may find in your inbox long lists of irrelevant emails from companies soliciting for all types of things. When registering your domain, whether it’s on your own or in partnership with an experienced web design company, ensure that domain privacy is being protected.

Getting a hosting account

Now, this is where things tend to get a little challenging. For small business owners who are not particularly web-savvy or who have never had a website before, we recommend having a skilled, experienced web designer with you. There are many reasons why, including being able to set you up with a domain and hosting site at a more affordable rate.

Finding the perfect hosting solution for a business site should include 24-7 support, a highly reliable and fast hosting server, little-to-no downtime, and inexpensive pricing. For a business site, 24-7 support is crucial, ensuring that should your site ever go down, you have technicians to go to immediately for resolution.

Building out the website with a professional

Though as a business owner, we understand you want to oversee the development and management of your website, using a professional web design company to help in the build is crucial. They will be able to identify any problematic code, assist in troubleshooting and resolving any issues as they come up, and make the needed design changes to get you the best site possible.

Also, depending on the need, you will be referred to content management systems, such as WordPress, which will help manage the site in the long term. Through WordPress, it’s amazing what a business owner can do. Re-write content, post blogs and manage the site, just as you would your business. With today’s standards, a responsive website is a must. An incredible amount of visit websites directly from their mobile phone or tablets. A website that is not responsive is not optimized to work effectively on some devices. Hence, user experience could be an issue.

Need a website? See our competitive pricing for website development.

Promoting Your Small Business Website (SEO, PPC)

After your business site has been designed, launched, and is now active, the next step is in getting the word out. This involves tapping into social media accounts and using search engine optimization (SEO). The biggest online marketing strategies used by small business owners relate to SEO, which will determine where your site ranks on search engines and how many people see it.

The use of SEO techniques in small business sites is key in being able to find visitors, which can then be converted into customers and in turn, revenues. To better the competition in the local and global marketplace, speak with your local web design and online marketing company for more information on how to best employ business-centric SEO strategies. Another strategy of promotion is Pay Per Click. Ads show up in search results that are related to the terms that you target. Every time a user clicks the ad search engines(Google, Bing) charge your account.

See our SEO packages.

Setting up analytics tools

Being able to measure the success of a website is integral in knowing where to apply attention. Thankfully, there are numerous analytics available for a small business website to see key stats, such as how many visitors they are receiving, where those visitors are coming from, and what pages are being viewed.

From the information procured from analytics, one can help determine where they may be losing customers’ attention, helping to streamline navigation and improve the overall user experience.

Beyond the information analytics will provide in improving sales conversions, this information can also be used to help better understand your audience. See where they are coming from, the kinds of terms they are searching for, what products or services resonate with them, and more.

Continue building credibility for your business

Be it the first time you’re working on a website or whether you are looking to upgrade/update an existing site, we can help. To grow your business in this day and age, a website is necessary. So many customers search for products, services, and businesses online.

Any business with a website establishes a level of credibility and professionalism that will serve them well in winning over customers online and helping to expand their revenue streams. Receive the opportunity to show off the hard work you’ve already put into your brand and gain further advantage in the local marketplace with a web design partner like us.

At All The Way Up Media, we do all of the things mentioned in this article and more, allowing you to do what you do best – focus on running your business – while we take care of the heavy lifting with the website.

Build a strong, healthy website, an extended social media presence, and use key SEO strategies to attract more customers than ever before. Truth be told, less than half of Canadian small businesses have websites and the businesses that do have a sizeable advantage so don’t be left out. Choose an internet marketing company that understands and specializes in small business website development.
Contact All The Way Up Media today!

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