In the Digital Era, the majority of customers will check online websites of products or services before making a purchase. Therefore, regardless of the industry, a company’s online presence can significantly impact its business success.
If your business doesn’t have a website or an online presence, your business will lose a majority of its customers. However, as a non-tech entrepreneur, you may not know where to start when you have a website idea for your business. This post will provide a beginner’s step-by-step guide to help you make suitable decisions so that your website can meet your business objective and at the same time, stands out from the crowd. Let’s dive right in.
WHY YOUR BUSINESS SHOULD CREATE A WEBSITE?
If you are still considering whether to build a website or not. Here are the 2 most outstanding reasons you definitely need to take into account:
Inform and Convert Potential Customers
With a website, you have the flexibility to develop an informational hub for your company. You can discuss your products, services, and unique value proposition in as much depth as you want.
When people find you online and become interested in your product or service, they will want to contact you to make a purchase. That’s briefly how your digital website gives you the potential to improve your sales. Websites do have a cost, they offer a good ROI though.
Increase brand awareness
One of the most important things you can do with a website is to showcase your brand in front of potential buyers. Customers are more likely to buy from you if you clearly explain who you are, what you represent, and what you stand for. But that’s the second step, you have to appear first.
Website will increase your credibility because customers can examine your quality and reliable information about your company directly on your website.
Prepare a revenue generation channel in the downturn period of offline business
During the Covid lockdown, the offline revenue generation channel was almost shut down and in total freeze. Businesses had to build their online channel as the last rescue. While the pandemic has survived its worst situation, we will never know if something similar may happen in the future. Starting to build your online sales channel today will surely secure your business in the future.
UPDATED GUIDE TO CREATING A WEBSITE
Now here is the full process with a detailed explanation for each step to build a website
Step 1: Decide on the purpose of your website.
Before you start building your website, you must first identify exactly what you want it to deliver. Are you looking for ways to offer goods and services to customers directly, or do you primarily require a simple information source where people can learn about your company? Or perhaps both?
That’s why your objectives should be defined as specifically as possible. Here are several typical objectives of a website:
- Show digital products or services for sale.
- Create a place where clients can get access to your services or your products and verify other company information.
- Build up customer data for future marketing and sales activities
Step 2: Choose a custom domain
Selecting domain name.
The first thing your website needs is a domain. Your domain is your home address on the internet and the signpost that allows the world to find you. Think of it as the virtual version of your storefront.
People usually type your domain name into web browsers to find you. As a result, you should make it unique and recognizable for people to remember it, while also remain to be a natural fit for your company. Don’t worry, it’s easy than it sounds to come up with one!
Here are simple requirements to make an effective domain for your product.
- Make it simple to memorize and pronounce.
- Keep it short, between 3 and 63 characters long
- Make it brand-related
Picking a domain extension.
When you choose your domain, you must also choose an extension. The domain extension is the suffix that appears after the domain name in a web address; the most common is “.com”. It is managed by the Internet’s Domain Name System, which controls how domain names are translated into Internet Protocol addresses. Some the other domain extensions include:
- .net usually for tech companies
- .org usually for nonprofits
- .info usually for information-only sites
- .club usually for interest groups
Step 3: Choose a website hosting provider
Every website requires a web host. A host is a corporation that offers or leases server. That space becomes the home of your website, containing all of the information for every page you create. So the step you need to do is choosing a host for your website. Hosting providers usually offer two sorts of services:
- Shared hosting is a type of hosting in which numerous websites share storage space on a single server. Each site has its own part of the server, ensuring that everyone’s information is safe.
- Dedicated hosting is when one website takes up the entire server. This hosting type is frequently used by extremely large sites with thousands of pages and tremendous volumes of data flow, such as Google and Amazon.
Step 4: Map out your site
It is critical to map out your site first (in technical terms: draw a sitemap) to define the overall structure of the whole website. Your website functions similarly to a family tree, with the parents (your home page) at the core and the children (various pages) branching out from there. As a result, you can understand how to redirect site users from one page to another.
While site mapping can be time-consuming, site maps are also useful for designers who need to understand the depth and structure of the site. Once the site map is created, the designers can refine it and ensure that the navigation is clear.
You can see an example of website mapping below.
If you are struggling in the phase, here are some suggestions to help you get started.
- A lead capture page where visitors enter their name and contact information so that you can contact them with additional information.
- An “about us” page that contains information about your company.
- A page dedicated to client testimonials and reviews
- A pricing page is essential for companies that offer subscription or service levels.
Or you can contact icts.io, our team will give you further detailed instructions to build a website.
Step 5: Select a web design that fit your brand value and target customers
Next, a website is definitely one of the most powerful tools you have for building your brand, so you need to make your brand identity stand out on your website including the following components:
- Logos
- Typography
- Color
- Format
- Written content
Your website design incorporates all of these features highlighting the personality of your brand when used together.
Website identification must be constant, especially if your company is new and you are developing your brand. From the customer’s perspective, a constant appearance helps your brand more professional. Depending on whether your brand is official or informal, modern or traditional, and so on, there are various styles to choose from. It’s a necessity to choose one style and stick with it.
Keep the same color, typeface, and graphic style on all of your landing pages. You can still change the layout and image choices, but your brand identity should remain consistent.
Step 6: Build your pages
Once you’ve decided on the general design, you can create a variety of pages. This is one of the most enjoyable aspects of website development.
Your primary goal should be to make the site intuitive, easy to navigate, and descriptive of your company. Creating your navigation menu so that visitors may quickly discover the pages they’re looking for is a great option. If you have numerous services, arrange them under a “services” menu heading. Use dropdowns to keep the bar from becoming overly cluttered.
Remember to always provide a descriptive title at the top of each page so that visitors understand what they’re looking at. It’s fine to use creative wording, but make sure the point is clear. This is vital to have the invisible line on a page that separates what you see first from what you must scroll to see.
Find a prominent location for your call-to-action (CTA). Many users will scroll to the bottom of the page to discover the CTA, although it may be better at the top.
If you want to dig deep into this topic, find out here.
Step 7: Connect the payment processor.
After you’ve finished mapping and building your pages, it’s time to go on to the next step. Those who run an e-commerce site must select a payment processing service provider. Anyone conducting business online should provide many kinds of payment.
The procedure only takes a few minutes, but a lot happens in that time. During payment processing, all information is routed through a secure gateway, which ensures the security of the data. Preventing your customers’ financial information from getting into the wrong hands is critical, so remember to carefully check before partnering with a payment processor.
Step 8: Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is something that every website owner of a business must consider. It is the technique of producing and optimizing your content to connect based on how your potential customers search for your products or services in search engines.
Every search engine has a distinct algorithm, but Google handles over 92% of all searches, therefore it’s preferable to optimize for Google. When someone conducts a search, Google will display the websites that it believes are the most authoritative and relevant to that search. Making your material searchable entails developing content that Google wants to show to everyone.
The rules of SEO are constantly changing, but two things remain constant: keywords and unique content. Spend some time researching the keywords that people use to find items or services similar to yours in search engines so that you can customize your content accordingly. Your content should be one-of-a-kind and descriptive.
Backlinks, or inbound links—links to your site from other websites—are also important, but they take time to develop. Begin linking to your website from social media as soon as you have one, and urge your followers to do the same. You can ask your target audience to leave reviews on consumer review sites in order to gain additional backlinks as well.
Step 9: Check your link and preview your website.
The following step is to test your website. Your internal links should be a priority. These links are how your users, as well as Google’s site crawlers, find the different parts of your site, and if they don’t work, your users and Google might not realize that those other pages exist.
Next, check any backlinks that come from sites you control, such as your Facebook page or Instagram bio. Also, make sure any links to third-party sites go to active pages. Non-working links can make your site look less professional and hurt your users’ experience.
Step 10: Publish your website
If you followed the instructions above, let your new website go live! You’ve double-checked everything and determined that the site is operational and online. All hard work pays off, it’s time to introduce your website to the world and attract new clients, and customers.
TIPS TO UPDATE YOUR WEBSITE
After publishing the website, you should usually check out website maintenance to ensure that your site is always up to date and contains new content for users. Here are some things you can do on a regular basis to keep your website in good shape:
- Check that the information on the site is up to date and correct.
- Introduce new products and services.
- Customer testimonials should be included.
- Include a blog to help the company promote itself as an industry leader.
- Look for client feedback on the website.
- Check that the e-commerce section of the site is operational.
CONCLUSION
A strong website is essential for expanding your audience, establishing an online presence, and producing revenue. You can design a website that boosts your brand and gets you the attention you deserve by following the steps outlined above.
However, there is just a minor note that different providers have somewhat different processes to create a website. So you can visit our website or contact us at info@icts.io to book a free consultation.
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