Building A Website For Your Business

In the modern world, it is almost essential for any business to have a website. It acts as a headquarters for customers to find you, contact you and purchase your services. Building a website might seem daunting, but it can be broken down into simple steps. 

First, you need to decide on your domain name. Try to choose something short, simple and relevant to your business. That way it will be easy for your customers to remember. Before you settle on your name, you must check whether it is already in use by another site. Also, some domain names are more expensive than others, so it would be good to use online tools to check the prices of your options. 

To make your website available to others on the internet, you need to host it on a web server. The company where you buy your domain name usually offers hosting services too, either for free or at an extra cost. It's a good idea to compare different hosting providers to find the best option and price for you. Free hosting is also available, but these services may have limited features.

There are lots of options for registering domain names and hosting websites online, including:

Go Daddy

Squarespace

Wix

Ionos

The content of your website is arguably the most important part. This is the real meat of what your customers come here to find. As you decide what you should include on your website, keep in mind what your customer wants and needs from you. The following pages form a good baseline to cover the essentials. 

This page is your website's first impression to a customer. It should include a welcome to the website to greet them, as well as something to show what the purpose of the website is. Tell your customers what service you are offering them right off the bat. If users are confused over who you are, what you do, or where to go on your site, they will likely bounce off your site to look elsewhere. 

The 'About' page is a chance to tell your customers exactly who you are, what you do, and why you do it. You might include:

• Personal expressions about how you got into this industry
• Some key moments from the company's history
• How your expertise has grown in your field
• A headshot of yourself or related individuals involved with the business

Remember your business' core values while you create your 'About' page, as it is the perfect place to give your customers a sense of what you stand for. 

Arguably the most important page is the 'Services' page. This is where your customers can find exactly what services you offer and decide to purchase from you. To make it easy for them to do this, you should include all the relevant information they need to make a decision. Be sure to include:

• A short but clear description of each service you offer
• The price (and any price variations)
• The duration of the service
• What geographic areas you cover (if there are any restrictions)
• The next steps in the process

Including multiple, clear 'Call To Action' options on this page is very important. After all, users will not buy your services if they can't figure out how to do so. Be sure to include buttons on this page which allow people to purchase directly through the website, or inquire about a service. 

Finally, you should include a 'Contact Us' page to list all of the ways to get in touch with you. Your customers will appreciate the ability to speak to you to follow up, so be sure to tell them how to do that. You might list your business email, a phone number, or your social media accounts on this page. 

A good optional inclusion to your website content is testimonials. Testimonials build faith and trust in your business quickly. If you have some positive reviews, you could choose a few of the best ones to put pride of place on your website. The Home page may be a good place to show off these positive expressions to immediately build trust in your brand to new visitors. 

Now that you know what you want to include on your website, you need to decide how to build it. You have three main options:

1. Build it yourself from scratch: Unless you have prior experience with coding and building websites, this is not recommended. 
2. Pay a Webdesigner: This gives you a lot of control and enables you to achieve a high level result. It's a great option if you're willing to pay. 
3. Use a DIY Template Builder: In may ways, this is a good middle ground. Template builders give you a measure of design freedom whilst not requiring you to code anything. This can be a cheaper option, and in some cases you can even build a website for free. The following sites are popular options for this kind of web-design:

• Squarespace
• WIX
• GoDaddy

The design of your website is almost just as important as the content. Good design serves the content, engaging the customer and making the message easy to understand. Bad design, however, can do the opposite. When designing your website, keep in mind the following tips. 

As with many things, consistency is key. Your website will be more legible ad comfortable to interact with if you keep the design consistent throughout the whole site. So, when designing each page, keep in mind your brand blueprint. Use your business colours, fonts, and shape language. Not only will this make browsing your site a more enjoyable experience for the user, but it will also reinforce your brand identity. 

White Space refers to the empty space in between your content. You might not always notice it, but it is very important. A good amount of white space gives the viewer's eye space to breathe, thus making the content more manageable.  

Here is an example of the Energy Trust website using white space to compliment the page design and the blog post content. 

When it comes to text, keep it simple. Do not use too many fonts or else it will clutter your website and slow down the page's loading time. Stick to one or two fonts that are easily legible and match your branding. Also, keep your text 'left-aligned' because this is the easiest format to read; it will curate a professional and functional aesthetic for your website. 

You should prioritise navigation in your design. If you are trying to sell your services through your website, then it is imperative that people can navigate easily to the right page to make their purchase. Simplicity can do a lot in this regard. Keeping a page simple and clear of unnecessary clutter helps the viewer see what they really need to, such as call-to-action buttons (eg 'make an inquiry') or menu buttons. So, stick to the key information and images. 

A menu is an immensely useful tool to allow people to navigate a website easily. Most people will expect to use a menu to move throughout a website, so try to include one in your design. This menu can direct people to each of your web pages. 

In the below example, all the necessary navigation destinations are docked along the top in a bar which always stays on screen, no matter where you scroll on the page. This is a good example of simple, clear navigation. 

Once you're happy with your design, it's time to publish your website. As discussed earlier, you will likely be able to do this through whatever web-builder or hosting platform you have chosen. Be sure to add your website to all of your materials as soon as it is live. 

Once a website is live, it's time to drive some traffic to it. A website is only helping you when it's being seen by potential customers. How can you get your website seen?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to improving a website's visibility and ranking on search engine results pages. The goal of SEO is to increase organic (non-paid) traffic to the website by making it more attractive and relevant to search engines. Research has shown that the results on the first page of Google get nearly 95% of web traffic, leaving just the remaining 5% for all of the other pages out there. This is why SEO is so important. There are a few simple ways to boost your SEO.

• Keywords: Keywords are a tool used by search engines to connect people to what they're searching for. If there is a particular keyword you would like to rank for, then make sure you use that keyword in the text of your webpage - particularly in the headers. Be careful not to overdo this though as it may frustrate users. You can do research into what keywords are common in your industry using online keyword research tools. 
• Titles & Headings: Keep your titles clear and relevant. Use keywords in your titles to make it clear what your site/page is all about. This will help the right people find you. 
• Page Speed: If your webpage loads quickly, then search engines will recognise it as a better page and prioritise it in the search results. So, be sure to use correctly compressed images, keep to a limited number of fonts, and keep your web pages simple to aid loading speeds.

You can find some more tips & tricks to optimise your SEO here. 

Google has some very effective ways to boost your website's visibility both for free and for a fee. 

With Google Ads, you can pay to have your website be the first to come up when someone searches a particular keyword. This can have a huge impact on how many people visit your website, but it can be costly. 

It is free to register your business as a Google Business. This allows you to tether your business to a location, be found on Google Maps, and collect reviews through Google. This can legitimise your business in the eyes of a customer and may help a customer find your website. 

Social Media accounts are a great way to drive traffic to your website. You can embed the link to your site right there in the account so that it's only a click away. This is more effective when you are active on social media; posting regularly, sharing testimonials, interacting with relevant posts and being active in industry groups or discussions can all boost the chances of you being found online.