How to get a Website for My Small Business
Ask Yourself What Does Your Business Really Need
Most businesses need some type of content online for customers to find. From freelancers to retail stores there are very few businesses that wouldn’t benefit from some type of website. However, their needs vary widely! A freelancer is not going to need a 50-page e-commerce page with customer carts and account management. So how to get a website for your business?
Think about what you need for your business! Do you need a simple one-page site, a blog, or a shopping cart?
So How To Get a Website, What Do You Actually Need?
Startup Business Website Content Design Layout on Paper
An Address Otherwise Known as a URL or Domain Name
You know what these are! www.google.com is a domain name. This is the URL for Google. You need one for your business as well. Think of something that is easy to spell/type and remember. For more detailed information on how URLs and web addresses work Click Here!
I once had a website that was www.vfxsmith.com. Telling people that over the phone (or in person) was extremely difficult “V” and “B” sound the same when speaking, unless you are being exceptionally clear.
Tips for Good Domain Names
- Easy to Remember
- Easy to Say
- Easy to Spell
- .com or .net unless it is more appropriate such as .gov or .edu
- Search it… See if it’s Available
- Make it Appropriate, something that makes sense for your business (Amazon and Google were very expensive to brand).
An Affordable Scalable Website Host or Webserver
A website host is where your website will live! This is an always-on computer that is connected to other servers so when people want to visit your site it is available to them. There are 3 or 4 main types of hosting for your website. Here the words Server and Host can be used mostly interchangeably.
Shared Server
$
A shared server is the cheapest way to get your site hosted. I would recommend against this type of hosting for small businesses.
Shared Hosting means you are sharing a server with others. If their site causes issues with the server it can and will affect your site.
Dedicated Server
$$$
This is the most expensive option for your small business website hosting. There are two ways to accomplish dedicated server hosting.
- You have the physical server and run it yourself
- You pay a service for an entire server and they run it for you
Option 1 requires onsite maintenance and technical expertise few small businesses can afford. With option 2 you won’t have onsite maintenance, but you will have a high cost.
Virtual Private Server
$$
VPS or Virtual Private Servers are the best of both worlds (in my opinion) and are much more affordable than dedicated servers. VPSs are also able to be more secure and perform far better than shared servers.
A Framework to Create and Display Your Content
Sometimes called a content management system (CMS) is software that makes it easy to create and display content on the internet without having to code every single item. The most popular of these I am sure you have heard of is WordPress! But, there are many others out there that may meet your needs better. Here is an abbreviated list of some of the CMS you can use as a small business.
All of the CMS platforms have their own positives and negatives. There are other options… You can even code your own website. If you only need a single page that won’t change often, this can be a real option for you.
Clear User-Friendly Design
You need a website that is designed with the user in mind. It doesn’t matter if your website is designed in Kansas City or Portland, your users need to be able to understand and use your site at first glance.
Website design and development services are available to help you with this if you are building your own site as there can be a lot that goes into this. The key to this is understanding your customers and how they are going to use your website.
Be interesting and Memorable
As long as your interface and layout are clear you have the freedom to be interesting and memorable. Use beautiful graphics in your website design. Every small business needs to research its target audience to see what they want from your website and then deliver it to them.
Most people expect similar things from a small business website. Such as a Home Page, an About Us, a Contact Page, and Products. Yes, you can have more or less but this is a general idea.
SEO and ongoing maintenance of Your Small Business Website
SEO or search engine optimization. If you Google this you will be flooded with thousands… yes thousands of people and companies all claiming they can get your site as #1 on Google. You will also be flooded with ads for the same thing.
What SEO is, is making your website optimized for searches on Google, Bing, or other engines such as www.duckduckgo.com (my personal favorite).
There is a lot that goes into SEO. Keyword research is knowing what your customers are searching for and providing content to that search. Your website needs to perform, aka be fast. This is another reason I don’t like shared hosting. For SEO and other reasons your site needs to be secure and have an SSL certificate, be mobile friendly and so much more.
Maintenance and Regular content
To get or stay at the top of the searches your business needs to publish content on a regular basis. There are tricks to this to cut down on the amount you have to publish. One such “trick” is user-generated-content such as comments can work for this.
Lastly, maintenance on a regular basis is needed. Every website needs to be updated to ensure it is secure from hackers, links need to be updated when they break, change design as design fads come and go.
Final Thoughts
There is a lot that goes into a website. Far more than the discount shared host providers let on. Think about what your small business needs in website design and hosting, and make the best educated decision you can. Your business can have an excellent website and compete online with the best of them.
Have a Great Day!
